


bruised giver, grit spinner

by hungerpunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Domestic Violence, M/M, Racial slurs, Recreational Drug Use, Z-Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:24:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/pseuds/hungerpunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Niall's never seen romantic love in the real world. His parents were never married, but even the marriages he’s seen haven’t looked happy. He's seen love in the movies, sure, but the movies aren't about Dogtown. The romantic comedies aren't about poor kids with fucked up parents. They aren't about a skinny skater boy and his best friend. But maybe, he thinks, they should be."</p><p>A Z-Boys AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bruised giver, grit spinner

**Author's Note:**

> This has obviously been a long time in the making; thank you to every person who tossed a "Good luck!" or a "I believe in you!" in my direction, your cheerleading was invaluable. Thank you to the few of you who did writing sprints with me at ridiculous hours. More specifically, thank you to my valiant betas [Lindsay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/icecreamsocialist/), [Gina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/castoffstarter), [Sprout](http://archiveofourown.org/users/prufrocks), & [Cait](http://betterthanwordsmorethanafeeling.tumblr.com/)\--all of whom made tangible contributions to this story & without whom I would have given up months ago. This is for you, my friends.
> 
>  **Warnings:** domestic violence, recreational marijuana use, alcohol abuse, racial slurs. Warnings should extend to include altered timelines and the Americanization of One Direction. Historical accuracy not guaranteed. 
> 
> Check out the kick ass fanmix by [Ellery](http://niallssquidgybum.tumblr.com/), [Locals Only](http://8tracks.com/ellerycellery/locals-only)!

Navy blue t-shirt. Levi's. Dark blue Vans. 

Kids have sweat and bled and broken bones to wear that combination. More than a combination, really: a uniform.

Niall stares at himself in the speckled mirror of their tiny bathroom, the insufficient light bulb overhead giving his skin a sickly yellow cast. Hundreds of kids dream of that uniform, probably, and Niall is just one of them. He fumbles with the zip of his wetsuit and tries to imagine it's the navy blue Zephyr shirt instead.

Outside, a car horn blares against the 6am hush, startling Niall out of his reverie. "Shit," he hisses under his breath, swinging the bathroom door open and tiptoeing out. That's Louis waiting for him; normally Niall watches by the window so he doesn't have to honk, but he'd gotten more caught up than usual in daydreaming this morning. 

Niall snatches his surfboard from where it's leaning in the hallway and holds his breath as he slips around the corner, eyes fixed on the couch in the den. He waits a moment, staring at the unmoving mass half-hidden by a lopsided blanket, but Greg doesn't stir. Thank god. Niall doesn't pause to sigh relief, just strides to the front door and slides out, closing the door behind him quietly.

"Don't honk, man," Niall reminds Louis as he climbs into the old Civic after depositing his board in the backseat. 

“Shit, sorry,” Louis says sleepily, rubbing one eye with his knuckle. “Forgot. You weren’t at the window.”

Niall brings his knees up to curl comfortably in his seat. “I know, sorry. Late start.” 

Louis puts the Civic in drive and coasts down the slope of Kensington Road. “You okay?” he asks after a brief silence. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall hurries to reassure him. “I’m fine.” Louis nods, and that’s the end of conversation until they roll up to P.O.P. 

That's P.O.P., short for Pacific Ocean Park, a once-popular amusement park laid to ruin by the new decade, now merely a carcass of abandoned, ramshackle rides and dilapidated pilings, festering at the edge of the ocean. The bare gray light of the early morning shrouds the pier at this hour, giving the whole assortment of rusting rollercoaster tracks an eerie vibe that won’t diminish til the sun clears the horizon.

But it's not really what's atop the pier that interests Niall, or anybody else anymore, but rather what's beneath it. 

Under the guts of the bankrupt amusement park lies the Cove, the crucible of Southern California surfing. It's a small patch of shore where the tide comes in like a sledgehammer; rough, high waves that are a siren call to daredevils and diehard surfers. With the P.O.P's splintering pilings on one side and fallen refuge masked by churning water on the other, the Cove's an incredibly dangerous spot; not just anyone's physically capable of surfing it and coming away without injury. Even fewer are allowed to try.

Because what goes hand-in-hand with the Cove is the Zephyr team, the agents of that hallowed Vans, Levi's, navy t-shirt uniform. The Zephyr team's a competitive surfing collective hand-picked and coached by Simon Cowell of Simon Cowell Surfboards and Zephyr Productions, formidable surfer in his own right, crafter of world-renowned surfboards, undisputed king under the P.O.P. 

Simon’s arms, dark with coarse black hair, are crossed as he turns to watch Louis and Niall advance, stoic face even more unreadable thanks to his ever-present aviators. If Niall and Louis hadn't been born and raised in the streets of Santa Monica, its gutters serving as their playgrounds, there would be almost no chance of Simon acknowledging them. As it stands, they've spent almost every morning since Zephyr's conception at Dogtown, working to gain Simon's acceptance and prove their worth, waiting and praying for a chance to audition for the team. So far, over the course of some years, all they've managed to achieve is Simon learning their names and assigning them veritable surfing chores. 

"Tomlinson," is the first thing out of Simon's mouth. "Boneyard Duty." Louis salutes him, not allowing one fraction of the frustration Niall knows he's feeling to cross his face until he's turned around, shooting a bitter glance Niall's way. Niall claps his shoulder in sympathy as he passes; Boneyard Duty means Louis gets to wade in under the pier—aptly named the Boneyard for how many surfboards have broken there against the pilings—and wait attentively to catch errant boards and surfers before they come to any real harm.

Which almost certainly means: "Horan, Val Lookout." 

"On it," Niall replies, turning to make his way up the rocks and pilings, hauling himself up onto the boardwalk. At least Louis gets to watch the surfers; Niall has to keep watch on the road and parking lot for any outsiders—disdainfully nicknamed “Vals,” as in, people from the Valley—that may try to breach Dogtown and surf the Cove. Occasionally, a group of douchebros will try to get in, but it seems like word of the ultra-exclusivity has been getting around at last. A week ago, Louis clambered down and wrenched the hood of some Val's car open, stealing the carburetor out of it. He paddled out to where the guy was already on his board in the water, arguing with a fiercely protective Simon about getting to surf. 

“It’s not _your_ fucking beach, man,” the guy had been in the middle of yelling when Louis held the carburetor up, dangling from his fist by a couple of thick wires, before smiling cruelly and dropping it right into the ocean. 

Nobody's tried since then. 

Alas, it’s important work. Even if Niall never gets more than the standard half hour of surf time tossed to the non-member Zephyr lackies at the end of each morning, he'd still rather die than see it surfed by a bunch of fucking yuppies, hometown pride and possessiveness carved deep into his bones. So he guards his post vigilantly, lounging against the railings of the boardwalk, chipping the peeling paint off and watching for someone besides intruders: Zayn. He's always ten minutes late, but time's passed well into the morning, and there's still no sign of his slouching figure. It's unusual, but there's not much Niall can do about it from his perch.

When Simon calls up to him that it's their turn, he navigates down the side of the pier and onto the beach, making a beeline for Louis who's returning from his car with their surfboards.

"Hey," Niall says as he reaches out to take his board from Louis gratefully. "Where's Zayn, man?"

"Dunno," Louis replies, shrugging, a shade of unease in his eyes. "Didn't hear anything from him." 

Niall and Louis hurry to the water, wading out to the tops of their thighs before straddling their boards and paddling out. "If he doesn't show," Niall says, upping his volume as Louis drifts from him. "You wanna go check it out after?"

"For sure," Louis says. "Now let's slay this." 

Though it’s better than nothing, their "turn" is a joke. It's the tail end of high tide and they barely get anything out of it. 10am is creeping up and immobilizing the Cove in its typical gradual fashion; the waves turn increasingly docile, rolling in farther apart and breaking closer to shore. From where Niall’s bobbing up and down with the tide, he can see the other Dogtown surfers preparing to leave, stirring from their makeshift throne of broken pilings beneath the pier. He and Louis wait out a little longer, just in case—Niall knows they’re both jonesing for even one more good break each. But the ocean stays flat, an occasional gentle swell that’s only good for being lulled to sleep on their boards, and eventually Louis signals to call it quits with a small, defeated smile. Niall drops down on his board and paddles in with the tide, Louis out to his left, maneuvering around a protruding piling. When they trudge onto shore Niall looks up to see Simon standing ahead of them. He stops short, can see Louis do the same in his peripheral. 

"Right, you two," Simon says, unarguably to them—past Simon's daunting figure, Niall glimpses the parking lot, where he can see the rest of the surfers gathered around Simon's pickup truck, waiting to go.

"Yessir," Louis says, the both of them rapt as ever when Simon's commanding their attention. 

"Tomorrow," Simon says. "It's judgment day."

“Fuck yes!” Niall shouts, unable to stop the excited grin that splits his face so fast his cheeks hurt. 

Louis throws a victorious fist up in the air, like an Olympian showing off a medal, careening into Niall. “Sick!”

“It’s a test, not an in,” Simon says in the same manner he might adopt when trying to prevent over-excited puppies from pissing on carpet. “Gotta prove yourselves first. And where the fuck is Malik?” Simon’s tone prickles as he tacks on the question, clearly interpreting Zayn’s absence as flagrant disregard when Niall knows nobody dreams of a blue t-shirt the way Zayn does—like it’s his only fucking chance on earth.

Niall exchanges a brief look with Louis. “Think he’s really sick, man, otherwise he’d be here.”

Simon’s face doesn’t alter much but Niall can _feel_ his displeasure. “Right,” he drawls. “Well, I want him, too. If he decides he can be bothered.” 

“Of course,” Louis says.

Simon nods. “All three of you tomorrow,” he says. “Hope you impress me ‘cause I’ve got something special in mind for you.”

Something tight and bold thrills in Niall’s chest like a spiral curl. “Will do,” he promises. “For sure.” 

“Thank you,” Louis has the mind to add, and Simon nods a final time before turning and walking away. They watch him get halfway across the beach towards his truck before either of them move.

“Holy shit,” Louis breathes, and it breaks some sort of spell over them.

Niall laughs and drops his board in favor of roping Louis into a wet hug, the skins of their wetsuits sliding easily over one another. “Oh my god, Louis.”

Louis clutches back at him, dropping his own board gracelessly. “Finally, fucking finally!”

“That really happened right?” Niall says in Louis’ ear. “I didn’t dream that?” 

“Not unless we’re both dreaming, dude.” 

Niall pulls back and holds Louis at arm’s length. He squints his eyes, trying to act as if he’s studying Louis, but he’s smiling too hard for it to carry any analytical effect. “You look pretty awake to me.” 

Louis reaches up and clasps his forearm, squeezing gently as he smiles back. “This is insane,” he says. 

Niall wants nothing more than to zigzag across the beach at full speed, screaming, or to call the newspapers and let them know what’s just happened. But first, before any celebrations: “We better go dig Zayn out of whatever grave he’s fallen into.”

︾

Standing on the crumbling cement stoop of Zayn’s duplex and ringing the doorbell incessantly doesn’t actually yield Zayn to them as Niall had assumed it would—an assumption based upon a consistent history of Zayn tripping out to fetch them sporting only boxers, bedhead, and supremely grumpy eyebrows. 

Instead, Trisha Malik creaks the door open and Niall almost swallows his tongue with how fast his expectant smile capsizes into a frown. He gets along with Zayn’s parents fine, but both Trisha and Yaser work full-time jobs. Her presence this time of day is odd itself, but he’s immediately alarmed by her bloodshot, watery eyes; the way the tip of her nose is flushed a sickly red; how her fingers flutter, pale, where they’ve gripped around the door to pull it open.

“Trisha?” Louis says, clearly as concerned as Niall. He’s got his maternal tone on in an instant, a far cry from how he was joking around with Niall a second earlier, the edges of his rasp softened. 

“Oh, boys,” Trisha warbles, brushing a wisp of frazzled hair back behind her ear. “Zayn’s, um, not here.” Niall glances over to confirm that Louis is equally as confused about the whole situation as he is. “He—” she starts, voice breaking. “He left a letter for us this morning. That he was leaving.”

Louis and Niall respond in overlapping exclamations of confusion, a chorus of “What?” and “Why?” and “Left to _where_?” 

Trisha brings her hand up to her mouth and shakes her head, like she can’t speak anymore, and simply holds out a crinkled piece of paper. Niall stares at it, can see Zayn’s spidery scrawl dashed across the page, but he doesn’t move to take it. All he can think of is how betrayed Zayn would surely feel if they read such a private letter. Louis must feel the same because he only cursorily glances over it before refolding and handing it back to Trisha carefully, as if it were something precious. 

“We’ll go look for him, okay?” Louis says, and Niall watches him, his gaze laser-focused on Trisha, and finds himself nodding along. Not only because of the conviction in Louis’ voice, but also because what else would they do? Niall’s mind reduces to problems and solutions in times of crisis: Zayn is gone, so they’ll find him. Obviously.

They don’t have to go far. Louis’ first suggestion after departing the Malik’s is to recruit Harry, and right there in Harry’s kitchen is Zayn. Louis makes a series of incoherent, mostly angry noises at the sight of him while Niall heaves a great sigh of relief. Zayn arches one eyebrow high.

“Hello,” Zayn says slowly, uncertain.

“Zayn,” Niall starts, and he tries for cool and balanced but he can’t help the sincere concern that bleeds into his voice. Harry’s behind Zayn, flitting around like a nervous butterfly. “We went by your place, man.”

Zayn’s head tips down, chin toward his chest, and Niall watches the ripple across his face when his jaw clenches tight. The skin under his eyes looks thin and worn. 

“Everybody sit down,” Harry says, sounding a little more high strung than usual. They comply without fuss and shuffle to the round dinner table on the far side of the kitchen, Niall seating himself across from Zayn so he can keep his eyes on him. The better to constantly reassure himself that Zayn is here and safe and not hitchhiking to some far-off destination, as previously imagined. 

The story trickles out of Zayn the way helium leaks out of a tired party balloon. He hunches further over the glass of water Harry had fetched him and tells them about how the apartment was getting too crowded. He keeps his eyes trained on his fingers as they absently feel out the wood grain of the tabletop and talks about how unfair it was that he had his own room because he was the only boy, while Doniya, Waliyha, and Safaa all had to share. About Waliyha’s explosive rant the night before about how she had no space for herself or anything to call her own.

“My parents never would have kicked me out,” Zayn mumbles without looking at any of them. “So I took the initiative. One less mouth to feed, y’know? And now Doniya can have her own room.”

“Yeah, but where will you stay?” Niall asks, nibbling around his thumb nail nervously.

Zayn shrugs. “Here and there.” He seems like he’s practiced being unbothered by the prospect, too smooth and detached to be real. 

Harry leans over and pats Zayn’s arm reassuringly. “You can always crash here.” 

The smile Zayn sends Harry’s way is a little tight, but still grateful. “Thanks, man.” Harry nods. Louis rubs the bridge of his nose like he’s filing all this information away for later. Niall thinks Louis might understand better than the rest of them, having left his family two years ago due to clashes with his stepdad and taking up residence in a co-op since. But if he’s got any insight, he doesn’t offer it now, and they sit in silence for a moment. There’s really nothing to be said; it isn’t like anything they could say would change Zayn’s mind. 

“Why were you guys looking for me this morning anyway?”

“Oh,” Niall says, recognizing Zayn’s attempt to puncture and deflate the awkward tension between them all and accepting it. It isn't that Niall doesn't want to hash out a contingency plan to keep him safe every night of the week, it's more that he knows nothing shuts Zayn down harder than prying. He’s content to let it go for now with the promise to himself that he’ll talk to Zayn about it later privately.

“I can’t even believe Niall’s kept it in this long, go on, tell him." Louis cants his head towards Zayn, smiling slightly as he looks at Niall who, to be fair, does feel like his skeleton is going to vibrate out of his skin at any moment now that he’s been reminded.

“Simon fucking wants us to trial tomorrow morning!” he says, quiet but so intense, his smile starting small and growing all the way to his ears.

“Shut the fuck up,” Zayn deadpans. Harry makes some garbled noise of surprise, muffled behind his huge paws that pass as human hands.

“No, I’m serious!” Niall insists, excitement rekindling in the pit of his belly. “Isn’t it true Lou?” He crosses his arms and looks to Louis.

“It is true,” Louis says, echoing Niall’s grin.

Niall can _see_ the way everything crashes over Zayn at once: the moment of denial passing but still in disbelief, the sudden anger at himself for not being there. He thinks he missed his shot. Niall knows him well enough to see each emotion at play, in the narrowing of his eyes, and the way he sucks just the corner of his lower lip into his mouth to chew. “That’s, like. Great! Like. I mean—”

Louis cuts in mercifully, “Before you can lie about being happy for us,” Zayn makes a noise of objection (which Niall would believe; he knows that Zayn really would be proud of them), "he asked about you, man. That’s why we’re fuckin’ here, isn’t it?”

Niall giggles at the way Zayn’s jaw drops a smidge, and his eyes go wide, always emphasized twice as much because of how long and dark his eyelashes are. Like a starlet’s, Niall tends to think. Like Elizabeth Taylor, or maybe even Twiggy. “He asked about me?” Zayn almost whispers.

“Specifically you. He wanted to know where you were.”

“Oh my god, what did you _say_?” 

“We said you were sick,” Louis says. “Just be happy we even thought that fast.”

“But he said that he has ‘something special’ in mind for us,” Niall adds, bunnying his fingers in air-quotes. 

“We’re supposed to all show up tomorrow and surf our asses off.”

“Shit,” Zayn exhales, running a hand back through his hair. “I broke my board last night.” 

“O-kay,” Louis says. “How?”

Zayn sulks at the table as if it’s personally offended him. “Got a little angry.” 

“Okay, but we’ve fixed that before,” Niall says, ushering them past an obvious sore spot. Everyone’s board breaks, especially surfing the Cove. You find a way to repair it. You always find a way to repair anything and everything you can in Dogtown; if it’s not being held together with superglue or duct tape, it’s almost not even real. Granted, surfboards require more time and effort than some things, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. 

Zayn scrubs his face tiredly. “Yeah, I dunno, just didn’t feel like dealing with it.” 

“Well it is time to deal with it, bro,” Louis declares, eyebrows raised, most likely alarmed by the fact that Zayn isn’t seeming to share their sense of urgency.

Zayn’s still a little hunched into himself, like maybe he’s more distressed rather than blindingly ecstatic like Niall and Louis. 

“Don’t worry, man, okay?” Nial tries to soothe. “We'll fix your board. Let’s go do it right now.” He scrapes his chair back and stands, bouncing on his toes, unable to squash down his overall excitement despite Zayn’s curveball.

Zayn gets up too but pauses and squints at Niall. “What time is it? Don’t you have work?”

“Eleven,” Niall says. “Don’t work til one.” 

“Okay, yeah, I guess, uh…” 

“To Paul’s?” Louis says. 

“To Paul’s,” Niall confirms. 

“Mind if I tag along?” Harry asks. “Don’t have anything to do.”

“ _I_ mind," Louis sighs melodramatically. “You stink.”

“You say that,” Harry chirps, absolutely undeterred, “but I know I don’t, because I just showered before Zayn came over.” As if simple logic could save him from Louis. 

“It’s unconditional,” Louis explains in an airy, affected voice. “It’s your essence. Naturally. You reek. Can’t fix it.” Harry huffs and pouts, but Niall can tell by how loose and easy his posture is that it’s all for show—that’s kind of the bread and butter of Harry and Louis, the teasing. He’s not sure how or why, but somewhere along the line it evolved into their most sincere expression of affection. If someone’s feeling down, their tactic is to distract everyone with banter. Zayn decided to leave home? Niall can almost guarantee that he’s in for a day jampacked with heckling and tickle fights.

︾

The bad news is that Zayn’s board is broken completely in half, which is not something duct tape can fix. A solution requires tools and skill and space they simply do not have. The good news is that Paul, who does have the tools and skill and space to fix it, can be bribed with babysitting. (Niall’s not sure who in their right mind would be so quick to trust them with their children, but he’s not about to judge the answer to their prayers.) 

The bad news is—

“This might take a couple days,” Paul says, apologetic. “Board’s gotta dry out all the way.” It smells to high heaven of epoxy in here; Niall barely resists pinching his nose shut. Resigned, they thank Paul and troop out of his garage. Harry leans past Niall to chuck Zayn under the chin gently, peering out from the hedge of his frizzing, birdsnest of hair. 

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You can borrow my board for tomorrow.” 

Louis snorts from ahead of them. “When was the last time your board even got wet?” It’s a fair enough question, as Harry only bothers to try surfing every once in a blue moon, but it’s too much innuendo for Niall not to laugh. He cracks up, listing heavily into Harry.

“He-ey,” Harry whines, wavering under Niall’s weight but managing to keep them upright. Niall can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s smiling. “It’s still a perfectly good board, Lewis,” he quips haughtily, drawing out the ‘s’ to better convey his supposed annoyance.

“It is good,” Zayn cuts in over the shenanigans. “Thanks, Harry.” And he’s smiling, too, but the moment of sincerity makes something lurch around inside Niall’s ribs. He peels off Harry and headbutts Zayn’s shoulder quickly, apropos of nothing, maybe just to remind Zayn that he’s there, before diverging from the pack.

“Gotta go to work,” he says, fistbumping Louis as he passes. “Later, boys.”

“Hey, Nialler,” Louis says, “You need a ride to P.O.P. in the morning?”

“Please! And thanks!” Niall answers, flashing a thumbs up.

“You coming over later?” Harry calls once Niall’s got a bit of distance, like an afterthought. 

Niall turns around and cups his hands around his mouth to call back. “Yeah! I’ll bring you something!”

“No more Motown, please!” Harry cries, and Niall pivots away, cackling over his shoulder.

“Never enough Motown, Styles!”

︾

The air is blessedly cool when he steps into The Record Store after a modest trek through the south side of Santa Monica, and Niall sighs in relief as the door shuts behind him. “Well, look who decided to show up,” Jesy greets as she straightens up at the front desk. 

“Am I really late?” Niall cranes his neck to check the clock on the wall. It’s exactly 1:00pm.

Jesy tucks the strand of hair she’d been curling around her finger behind her ear and shrugs. “How should I know? I’m just fuckin’ with you.” 

“Ah, that’s right, almost thought you were manager or something,” Niall says sarcastically as he rounds the counter and stows his bag beneath it. 

“A ridiculous notion,” Jesy agrees silkily. She looks at home in the shop, all but a select few strands of hair pulled into a messy topknot and a skirt with a skull pattern on it that Niall’s pretty sure he remembers her saying she’d made herself. 

He cocks his hip against the counter. “So, not-manager, what’s on the agenda today?”

Jesy drums her nails—sporting a flawless coat of jet black polish—against the countertop. “The entire agenda right now is I’m going to get lunch. You stay here. Make sure nothing burns down.”

Niall can respect that agenda. “Aye, aye, cap’n,” he salutes, moving to assume the spot she’s vacated. He loves this job. The owner’s a total hippie, lost in a cloud of dank whenever he comes in, with the specific kind of humor that led him to name his record store The Record Store. Niall bets his dog is named Dog. But he's a good guy and he's entrusted Jesy with pretty much everything, and though she can be fierce, she rules with a generally benevolent hand as long as she’s well respected. Punch in around a vague suggestion of an hour, get paid for your time, punch out when you’ve decided you would no longer like to be paid. If you aren’t productive within those hours, you just won’t get any hours after that. Niall’s not complaining. When Jesy returns they stock new arrivals together, chatting easily while always keeping watch on the front door. 

“So,” Niall begins after a brief pause. “You may have to hire someone new soon.”

Jesy thwacks him hard in the arm with a Neil Young album. “Shut up. You are not leaving me here, are you?”

Niall rubs the offended arm. “Ow,” he complains. “No, I’m not _leaving you_. Not fully, anyway, but I. Jesy, I think the Zephyr team’s picking me up.” 

Jesy thwacks him again and Niall scowls at Neil Young’s face. “Shut up!” she says, tone entirely different this time. “Oh my god, Niall! For real?” 

His arm is stinging but he can’t help his smile, shy now for some reason, and he scratches the back of his neck. “Shit. Yeah, I think. Only, the real trial’s tomorrow morning. Hope I'm not jinxing it.” 

“‘Course not,” Jesy says, firm and resolute. “You’ll be great, I know it. Aw, little Niall,” she croons and reaches over to pinch his cheek. Working with Jesy is a contact sport. “I remember when we were kids, y’know?” she asks, and Niall does. They used to be next door neighbors, before Jesy’s parents divorced. Niall can still recall playing in the Nelsons’ red sandbox, matching Jesy in endless rounds of sidewalk chalk tic-tac-toe, and the time they set up a lemonade stand together on the corner of their block. Their moms used to be friends, too.

“We’re still kids,” he protests. 

“Yeah, but now you’re a Z-Boy,” she says. “They’ll make a man out of you.” 

Niall thinks part of the allure of the Zephyr team is its agelessness; Z-Boys are more than kids, but most are not exactly adults, either. He drops down on his haunches and cuts open a new box of albums. “Not official yet,” he reminds her. “But if I make it, I’ll need to shave my hours down for practice time.” In all honesty, the prospect of making less money than he is now is daunting, but it'll be well worth it. The Zephyr team is all he’s been working towards; anything would be worth it at this point, he thinks.

Jesy nods, back to business. “George can take a few extra shifts until I can get someone else, unless you got a recommendation.” 

Niall thinks of Zayn, but that might be a moot point if they’re on the team together. “No Perrie?” he asks of Jesy’s longtime girlfriend, who has worked around the shop a few times before during transition periods.

Jesy shakes her head. “Nah, she’s on doubles at the diner these days.”

“Bringing home the bacon?” he teases.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” Jesy sniffs, indignant. “We are equal bacon-bringers in our home.” She looks like she’s going to come at him with another record so Niall ducks away, flashing upturned palms as a sign of peace and giggling. 

Before closing, he skims through the box of secondhand 45’s for something for Harry. It’s kind of a joke between them: Niall tries to find the most ridiculous cover art or song title and brings it to Harry, who pretends it’s actually valuable and files it away with all his others. They’re fifty cents secondhand, so Niall doesn’t mind coughing up after he’s worked a few hours, but more often than not Jesy will wave his money away.

“It’s been at the bottom of that bin for over a month,” she’ll say. “You’re doing me a favor.” 

That night he walks away with one by a band he’s never heard of, but the cover is a photo of what appears to be exceptionally disgruntled musicians stuffed into banana costumes. 

“Thank god,” Harry coos, pressing it to his chest after Niall wings it at him frisbee style. “This one’s a real beauty. I was afraid we were going to be stuck in that Marvin Gaye phase forever.” 

“A foolish fear,” Niall chides. “Marvin’s a god.” 

“Be that as it may,” Harry says, hanging the 45 up on the fridge with a couple of magnets. “You know I love bananas. This is worth a lot here in chez Styles.” 

Niall reaches out to muss Harry’s mop of unkept curls. “You’re so weird.” But a stiffness in his shoulders that he wasn’t even aware of eases suddenly at Harry’s words. Harry won’t take real currency from him no matter how many nights a week Niall crashes on his family’s couch (not that Niall could pay him much in the first place, but). The 45’s serve as tokens of his appreciation, he figures, and he’s glad Harry acknowledges them.

Harry shakes his hair right back out. “Yeah, yeah. C’mon, I’m grilling out back.” Which is actually Harry-code for _I tried to start the grill and I got the meat ready but Niall will you please grill us dinner?_

“Your mom and dad not home?” Niall asks, more out of formality than anything else, grabbing a beer for each of them from the fridge before following. 

“Are they ever?” Harry says, not half as grim as Niall thinks he’s entitled to be, and that answers that, really.

“Hey, um,” Niall ventures, brow furrowing as he lays the seasoned patties out on the grill. “Zayn comin’ over later?” 

“No, I think he’s staying at the co-op with Louis tonight,” Harry says. Niall stays mentally snagged on his concern but hums and lets it go for now, turning his attention to the grill.

After they’ve each put away a couple of Niall's grilled-to-perfection burgers and a few beers, they wind down in patio chairs outside, side by side and barefoot, watching the sunlight leech from the sky. Niall keeps toeing the fine protrusion of Harry’s tattooed ankle bone absently as they talk.

“Louis and Zayn will be over bright and early to collect my board. And you, I s’pose,” Harry says. 

Niall nods, twisting his near-empty beer bottle in his hands. The only time he ever gets bottles is when he stays at Harry’s. “Yeah, s’pose so.” He opens his mouth to speak again but hesitates a moment, picking at the Schlitz label until it starts to peel. “How did he look this morning?” he asks eventually.

“Zayn?” Harry double-checks, and Niall nods, glancing up but unable to hold Harry’s gaze for long. For some reason his palms are sweating. Harry shrugs. “I mean, not, like, good. Obviously. But he wasn’t like a wreck about it or anything.”

“I just,” Niall starts but stops short, rubbing a hand over his face and taking a deep breath. “I just don’t get it, man. He’s got a good family who loves him.” 

“Dunno,” Harry says, sounding put out about it himself. “He feels like a burden I guess.” 

Niall shakes his head in exasperation, an abrupt sense of profound tiredness bleeding into him. “Where is he even gonna go?” 

“Me and Louis will put him up when we can, but… you know it’s not like he’s going to think crashing with us all the time is acceptable, either.”

“Stupid,” Niall mutters into the lip of his beer before he takes a sip, imagining Zayn sleeping on park benches and under trees. It twists his gut nearly in half. Except he doesn’t really think Zayn is stupid, not one little bit. Too hardheaded for his own good, but never stupid. 

“Gotta let him figure it out for himself,” Harry says. 

“Aren’t you worried at all?” Niall finds himself asking without really thinking.

Harry kicks at his calf. “Of course I’m worried,” he insists, sounding offended. “But how many times have we talked Zayn out of something he’s set his mind to? Oh, that’s right. None.”

Niall picks at a fraying hole in the knee of his badly fading jeans. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, sorry, man.” He glances up and the look Harry is giving him is at once cutting and—and something like suspicious, Niall thinks, with his lips thinned together and eyebrows pinched. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” he tries again.

Harry sits back in his chair and rolls his shoulders, quick to forgive the unintentional slight. “I mean you can try to talk to him tomorrow…” he says slowly, unable to keep a shade of skepticism from his voice. 

“Nah,” Niall says, feeling defeated. “Need us all to be focused tomorrow.” He lifts his bottle to swig down the dregs, pulling a sour expression because the last swallow is always especially bad. 

“Speaking of tomorrow,” Harry changes the subject, mood easing up. “You want me to come? I can bring my camera. Document your glorious induction.” 

Niall laughs lightly, leaning over to set the bottle on the ground. He has to admit, the idea of Harry sitting up on that piss-poor pier with his camera while they surf for their lives is comforting. “Sure, if you feel like getting up that early.” 

“Anything for you guys, I guess." Harry smiles. 

“It’s why we keep you around,” Niall says, sticking out his tongue. “Sure as hell ain’t for your surfing skills.” Which are, in fact, abysmal—Harry never had the natural knack, nor the drive to compensate for that. He’s content to watch. To photograph. 

But the truth of what he said isn’t lost on Niall; he knows Harry really would do anything, well, just about, for them. Including Zayn. Niall’s suddenly grateful that Harry can serve as a stand-in home base for Zayn and he feels like a brat for ever doubting him.

He offers to clean the grill to make up for it, relieved when Harry says he’s off to bed but pauses to give Niall a hug first. Niall finishes the grill and heads inside, making his way to the huge leather sofa in the den he favors when he spends the night. He falls into a restless sleep there, half-dreaming in the small swatches of street lamp light that glow through the slatted blinds.

The next morning Louis’ Civic pulls up outside Harry’s right on time and Zayn comes in to fetch them. Niall’s not sure what he was expecting, but Zayn appears perfectly fine, even more alert than he normally does before sunrise. He watches Zayn’s shoulders shift under his shirt as he troops out behind him, but nothing in the way Zayn slinks down the driveway screams, “broken-hearted drifter.” 

With four boys and three boards, the car ride is a bit of a joke; Zayn and Harry are squished half on top of each other in the passenger seat, while Niall lies down in the back, boards suspended above him as both ends stick out the rear windows. 

“Zayn made you coffee, Nialler,” Louis croaks in his groggy morning voice as he reverses the car onto the street. 

“What?” Niall asks, his own voice a mere rasp. He’s the only one of the whole group who’s developed a taste for coffee yet, so he’s a little confused but mostly touched as Zayn passes it back to him in a thermos, their fingers brushing together for a moment. He takes a sip and groans. “S’good. Thanks, bro,” he says.

Zayn shrugs, ducking down to lean his head against the window. “No big. Just followed the instructions.” Niall watches as Harry pulls the hood of Zayn’s sweatshirt up and ties the strings into a perfect bow before he rolls his head back and shuts his eyes. The air coming in the open windows is chilly, and he burrows as far as he can into the cloth back seat of the Civic, hoping only that the wind will blow in some killer waves for their trial.

When they stumble out of the car and onto the beach, it’s Simon, his aviators, and a skeleton crew of his surfers that awaits them. His attention immediately alights on Harry. "Who’s he?” is the first thing he asks as they approach.

“I’m Harry,” Harry tries for diplomacy at the same time that Louis waves his hand. 

“He’s good, he’s local. He just wants to take pictures,” Louis says, gesturing needlessly to the camera hanging around Harry’s neck.

Niall doesn’t have to see Simon’s eyes to see his skepticism; his crossed arms and the high arch of one eyebrow do the job. “Local, I swear,” Niall adds, and when Zayn chimes in too, he sighs and relents.

“Fine. But you better get up on that pier and make yourself useful, whoever you are—”

“—Harry—” Harry tries again.

“—and sound the alarm if any Vals pull up,” Simon steamrolls over him. Niall reaches behind his back and grabs Harry’s wrist tightly, silently willing him to shut up. 

“Yessir,” Louis answers before Harry can open his mouth, saluting Simon.

“Right,” Simon moves on. “We’re sacrificing prime time for you sea rats so get the fuck out there.” Niall’s not sure he’s ever moved so fast, dashing off at a dead sprint behind the others after sparing a second to point out the way up the pier to Harry. 

It’s the first time they’ve been allowed more than sloppy seconds at the Cove, and Niall’s almost positive it’s the best he’s ever surfed, the best any of them have surfed. He may be freezing through his wetsuit but he slays almost every run, he can tell both by the fluttering in his gut and how loud the judging panel onshore is being (“panel” is playing it fast and loose—it’s Simon in his inscrutable sunglasses and some of the first gen Z-Boys wake and baking while they watch). Nobody gets as loud of cheers out of them as Zayn does, though, and Niall can’t keep a smile off his face the whole time, watching Zayn carve his waves impeccably and with an intuitive grace.

Though neither he nor Louis have the style of Zayn, if there’s one thing Niall wishes he could absorb from Louis, it’s his ability to convey both passion and a sense of familiarity. When Louis drops in and cuts across the crest of his wave, there’s no questioning it’s where he belongs. It’s so evident that he’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing, looks so earnestly in _love_ with it, so at home in the water, giving his whole heart. Niall can’t explain how Louis manages it for the life of him—if he could, he’d mimic it to the best of his ability. 

Still, he thinks he does well in his own right, his heart pounding like a kick drum in his chest as he takes his turns. The adrenaline is incredible, knowing without a doubt that Simon is watching them, that the spotlight is well and truly on them. It fuels him more than proper sleep or coffee could have. Above Simon on the pier is Harry, who throws his arms up every time one of them goes. Niall’s glad he came along.

Unfortunately, as good as the waves have been to them, they die out earlier than usual, and Zayn, Louis, and Niall wash up onto the beach to find Simon’s truck idling out in the street. “Well, get in, then,” he calls out the window, and it’s all the acceptance the three of them need to scurry along. Louis waves Harry down from the pier and presses his car keys into his hand ecstatically, spouting off instructions and thanks and wrapping Harry up in a big hug. Harry waves them all off with congratulations and a huge smile, camera around his neck and Louis' car keys glinting in his fingers.

The three of them wing board and limb into the bed of the rumbling Datsun pick up, where just two other people sit today—Niall recognizes both of them, though he’s never been introduced. He’s slightly afraid there might be a posturing contest or some sort of hazing, and he can tell from the stiffness with which Louis seats himself and grips tight to his board that he’s thinking the same, but instead the pair burst into a welcoming round of applause.

“Welcome to the team,” says one, a boy whose damp hair, sun bleached at the tips, is already drying into haphazard curls that remind Niall of Harry’s. “I’m Liam.”

“And I’m Caroline,” says the girl, though “girl” might be the wrong word; she looks older than them to Niall, but not by much. She flicks a long strand of dripping hair over her shoulder and reaches out to shake their hands. For someone who presumably spends a lot of time in salt water, the skin of her hands is smooth, much more so than Liam’s, who follows her lead and shakes their hands as well. His hands are warm but calloused, rough and cracking at all the joints like Niall’s own. 

“I like your style,” Caroline says, eyes on Zayn. Niall’s not known Zayn to blush much but he’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening when Zayn ducks his head and issues a soft word of thanks. Niall grins to himself, delighted by the uncharacteristic bashfulness. 

When the moment passes and Zayn raises his gaze again it catches on Niall’s—making Niall realize he’s been staring—and his eyes crinkle into happy crescents as he smiles. It’s so bright, so authentic that Niall can’t help but return it, unable to stop a quiet puff of laughter. He can read it all there in Zayn’s face: how long they’ve been working for this, how unbelievable it is to have it within their grasp at last. He tips his head, a silent nod, and Zayn returns it. Niall has to has to force himself to look away and refocus on his surroundings, tucking Zayn's smile away for later.

“It’ll be good to have some younger guys on the team,” Liam’s saying candidly, only slightly sheepish when Caroline reaches over to cuff one of his ears, offended. “I’m just saying,” he shrugs, looking down. “I like the team but… it’ll be good, that’s all.” 

“Happy to fill in the gaps,” Niall smiles, looking across at Liam til Liam meets his eyes and smiles back.

The trip from P.O.P. to the Zephyr shop is short. Simon parks along the curb in front, the truck shuddering down the gears with an unhealthy grinding sound, and Niall feels his palms prickle. How many times has he passed this shop, gazing longingly, impressed by the cool stature of whoever was lounging outside? Long enough that the idea of entering as a member had moved beyond the realm of possibility, it seems.

“Everyone works somehow, y’know?” Liam explains as they hop down from the truck and file into the shop. “Everyone gets jobs. Last week I was helping Simon work on boards, this week I’ve been running errands. Whatever needs to be done, we do it, no complaints.” Niall nods rapidly, wanting to show how hard he’s paying attention. It feels like there’s probably an air conditioner trying and failing to do its job somewhere in here, but Niall isn’t bothered at all. The shop smells like sandalwood and weed and sweat, a comforting combination. As he looks around, he can see that literally every person in it is, in fact, doing something. One guy looks to be cleaning and organizing the check out counter, another is stocking gear, and still another is sweeping the floors. Again, Niall vaguely recognizes them all from surfing.

“You’ll usually get fed here,” Liam continues. Niall watches Caroline saunter by them and out the side door to some kind of patio. “Somehow, by someone. We like to barbecue a lot.” 

“Oh, I’m mean on the grill,” Niall says.

“Me too.” Liam smiles. “We’ll have to have a grill-off.”

“Nobody can beat Niall,” Louis says, and to most people it probably sounds like proud affection, but Niall knows him well enough to hear the bite in it, too. 

“Oh, stop,” he preens, overly dramatic as he ducks his chin and flutters his eyelashes like a caricature of a swooning virgin. While everyone’s busy laughing, he shoots Louis a look and shakes his head, imperceptible to anyone not watching for it. He can tell that Liam’s sunny, worker bee exterior is rubbing Louis the wrong way for some reason. Louis returns his covert disapproval with faux-innocence, a _Who, me?_ expression complete with comically wide blue eyes and raised shoulders. Niall looks away; he’ll have to hash it out with him later.

Simon reemerges from whatever corner he’d walked around and grabs Niall’s shoulder in one hand and Louis’ in the other, Zayn hovering between them. “Before you get going here, let me talk to you boys about something.” He nods to Liam. “Payne, go help set the course up.” Liam nods and gathers up a stack of orange cones from beside the door before leaving.

“I have to confess,” Simon begins, “I didn’t recruit you for surfing, I recruited you for something else.”

He walks over to the front counter and heaves a large cardboard box up from the ground, opening the flaps and digging into the packaging peanuts. Niall is filled with a mixture of fear and hesitance. If they weren't recruited for surfing, then nothing makes sense. He can feel his dreams bursting like cold water balloons in his stomach.

From the box Simon pulls brand new, shining skateboards. 

"I'm putting together a skate team," he says seriously, stacking the boards on the counter. "I put Liam and Caroline on it, but I wanted fresh talent. You guys were my first pick." 

Niall still has his old skateboard—well. Really, it’s a plank of salvaged wood, but that’s pretty much what they all have. He remembers purchasing second hand roller skates and sweating as he sawed the clay wheels in half. Together he and Louis had puzzled through attaching them to crude boards of their own design, carved from a cast-off dresser drawer. 

It was fun, as long as you didn’t hit a rock, but it couldn’t compete with the fervor of surfing for him, and though he still rattles around on it now and then to get from place to place, he hasn’t paid much attention to the resurgence in popularity, acutely aware of it but ultimately preoccupied.

Now, though, up at the counter, he spins the smooth polyurethane wheel with his finger and marvels at the speed, the texture. “This is insane,” he says, eager as ever and mystified. 

“Go on, try ‘em out,” Simon nods. “You can tell me your decision afterwards.” 

Outside the shop, Liam’s setting up cones all the way down the steep slope of Bicknell Hill. Caroline’s hovering at the top, twisting her long hair into a braid over her shoulder, pushing her own board back and forth with her foot idly.

“Slaloms?” Niall asks, fingering the rough surface of the unscathed grip on the deck. 

“Mhm,” Caroline hums, finishing her twist. “Basically, do how you surf, y’know?” 

“Surfing concrete,” Zayn says, and Niall can detect the hint of wonder in his voice, the certain hush Zayn always speaks in when he’s excited.

Skating feels so different that it’s a completely new experience. Niall’s not sure he’s ever moved at such velocity downhill—the wheels carry him smoothly, effortlessly, and his control feels much greater than what he had over his homemade board. He careens down Bicknell crouched low to the board, favoring his center of gravity; the sensation is so overwhelming, almost like he’s flying. He whoops happily as he dares to reach out and touch the pavement the same way that he’d touch a wave, skimming by hot and rough under his palm. Adrenaline swoops through his chest like a parachute surging open, and over the rush of blood and wind in his ears, he can hear Louis laughing.

After that, he actually makes an effort with the slaloms, weaving back and forth between the cones as best as he can, always watching Liam and Caroline for technique, never getting annoyed when he wipes out. It’s frustrating when he can’t nail something that looks easy for the others—Louis and Zayn are definitely picking it up easier than he is—but Niall doesn’t see the point in wasting time getting sore feelings when he could be trying again. Every time he falls, he examines the scrapes and gets up. Eventually, the more battered his body, the more proud he gets, like he’s got something to show even if his skating is still a rickety fledgling. He wants Simon to know he’s giving his all.

“More style, Liam!” Caroline calls down the hill as Liam proceeds to slalom without knocking over a single cone, and Niall pays attention to that, too. Liam seems technically proficient, but for some reason, he doesn’t stand out the way Caroline does when she skates. The way she flares her hands when she throws her weight, how she poses over her board—it’s the same way a surfer has got to have their own style, and Niall mentally calculates all the aspects of it that he can.

He’s waiting at the top of the hill for his turn when Louis wipes out for the first time all afternoon. Niall goes from cheering to swearing in a flat second. He doesn’t see exactly how it happens, but he sees Louis fall backwards off his board, a commotion of flailing limbs and dead weight as his body skids a sickening distance down the asphalt thanks to his momentum. 

“Lou!” he yells, taking off at a run towards where Louis has come to a stop, Zayn moving in his peripheral. He knows Louis is tough and all, but he took that fall shirtless, and Niall can put two and two together well enough. 

Louis’ face when they reach him is marred by a tight grimace, and he’s biting into his own hand, probably to stop himself from screaming. Zayn drops to his knees immediately and pries Louis’ hand out of his mouth to grip it tight in his own. “Stupid,” Louis hisses through gritted teeth, his nostrils flaring wide. “Too much weight on m’back foot.” 

“Get him off the pavement!” comes Liam’s voice, and Niall looks up to see him jogging down the hill. He nods and stoops to help Zayn hoist Louis up between them gingerly.

“Oh god, stop, it’s not—” Louis says, face red. “Don’t make it a fucking production,” he tries to bite as Liam comes to assist them.

“There’s a bathroom in the shop,” Liam says. “I can carry him if you can’t.” 

There’s no aggression in Liam’s voice, just a factual offer, but Louis snarls, “I can fucking walk.” Liam recoils visibly, taking a step back and looking from Niall to Zayn with a baffled face.

Zayn snaps at Louis, “He’s trying to help. Your back is fucking totaled.” Niall adjusts Louis’ arm around his neck and follows as Liam pivots and leads them up Bicknell. 

The bathroom of the shop is tiny and pretty disgusting, but Liam clangs the toilet seat down and sets a clean-looking towel on it. “Set him there,” he says. “Then, if you could just—give me some space?” Niall and Zayn take the cue and shuffle out of claustrophobic bathroom, hovering in the doorway like nervous parents. 

Louis’ venom is tempered by the pained way he rests his elbows on his knees and hangs his head down between his shoulders, chin against his chest, quiet now as Liam wedges himself in between the sink and the toilet to inspect Louis’ back.

“Doesn’t look _too_ deep,” he murmurs, cool and composed as Niall looks on with bubbling worry, nibbling the edge of his thumb nail while he takes in the spectacular case of road rash that Louis’ back is sporting. “I can’t see anything past the surface... and no skin hanging off…” Liam trails, hemming and hawing. 

“Great," Louis grunts. “So can we officially declare this a nonemergency?” 

“No need to panic, no,” Liam says. “I’ve seen a fair bit of this.”

“My hero,” Louis deadpans.

“Look, man, I dunno what I did to offend you,” Liam says. “But I’m gonna have to wash your back, it’s gonna hurt a lot, and you’re making it hard to feel bad about that.” 

“He’s sorry,” Zayn says, sharp and quick, and Niall glances over to see his eyes thin to slits. “And he’s gonna stop being a brat right now.”

“ _Wow_ —” Louis says, unhappy as the board tips against his favor. 

“Louis,” Niall cuts him off, because he's not too proud to beg a little. “ _Please_.” 

Louis raises his head long enough to level Niall with an unimpressed glare. Niall doesn’t understand how he has the energy to be this difficult while in so much pain. “Fine. Have your fun.”

Over the course of an hour, Liam doctors Louis with the patience of a saint. He washes Louis’ back with warm water from the tap tenderly, thoroughly, apologizing in a soft murmur whenever the pain ratchets up high enough for Louis to get vocal about it. At one point he douses a pair of tweezers from the medicine cabinet with rubbing alcohol and painstakingly picks pieces of embedded gravel out. The whole time, he narrates everything he does, whether for his own benefit or for Louis’, Niall’s not sure, but he finds it comforting himself. Liam’s got a pleasant voice, soothing as he talks them through everything with an unwavering sense of calm.

“Where’d you learn all this?” Niall asks eventually, gesturing to, well, all of it: Liam’s tranquil demeanor as he goes about tending Louis’ back, and with the skill and air of an actual doctor.

Liam taps a bit of gravel off the tweezers and into the trash. “I’m a part time lifeguard,” he answers. “I have to know all sorts of first-aid stuff.” He looks up at them for a moment and gives a half-smile. “I pretty much double as an in-house medic for Simon.”

Niall can see Louis’ mouth twitching so he quickly says, “That’s kinda cool, man,” and lets the silence descend again.

It's not too much longer before Liam straightens up, twisting to crack his back. “Almost done,” he says as he begins to dab an even coat of some ointment, thick and smelly, over the road rash. “Just got to dress it, okay?”

“Okay,” Louis croaks, sounding half-dead. He’d lapsed out of his petulant, embarrassment-borne anger after only a handful of minutes, like a thrashing animal sedated, and had remained mercifully silent for the majority of the entire procedure.

“You guys are gonna take Simon’s offer still, right?” Liam asks, and Niall can detect the hint of worry in the question. He thinks back to their conversation in the truck earlier that day, to how lonely Liam had seemed when he said he was happy to have people his age on the team.

"Bro, if a little road rash could put us off, Simon wouldn't have chosen us," Louis grits out, and Niall finds himself agreeing heartily. 

"No way would we pass this up," he says, and Zayn nods. "I guess we should go give him our answer, though."

Zayn and Niall go to take care of that once Liam starts dressing Louis’ back in thick, gauze bandages.

Simon’s not out on the hill anymore, though, and Caroline points them back the way they came after asking whether Louis is okay.

“He’ll live,” Zayn says, eyes fond despite the touch of exasperation in his voice.

Back inside, the only person there is an older boy—Niall thinks he introduced himself as Olly—rolling a joint at the front desk where he is presumably keeping an eye on the store.

“Hey,” Niall says as he strides up to the counter. “You seen Simon, man?”

“Aw yeah, sorry,” Olly replies, only briefly looking up from his task. “He’s in the back now, working on some orders. Y’know. Surfboards. Actually making the money around here,” he laughs. “Anyway, it’s kind of an unspoken rule not to bother him back there, but I’ll be taking this—” he gestures to the joint— “back to him in a sec, if you need me to pass on a message.”

Niall scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, we just, like. Wanted to say thanks and that we definitely wanna be on the team. Like, for sure. We’d stick around but we’re gonna take Louis home.”

Olly looks up for real then, smiling at both of them. For some reason, he reminds Niall of a teddy bear, and he relaxes a bit. “No sweat, bros. But make sure you’re at the Cove early A.M. You’re still gonna start your days with surfing.”

“Cool, totally,” Zayn says, and Olly holds his fist up for both of them to bump. 

They collect Louis from the bathroom, thanking Liam effusively. Liam goes a little red and says he’s looking forward to seeing them tomorrow, and Niall tips his snapback up at him with a cheerful grin before they head out.

“Don’t know how I’ll surf tomorrow, or until this fucking heals,” Louis moans as Niall turns them in the direction of his co-op. They’re all carrying their boards instead of riding them—seems appropriate for the given situation. “Salt water on it will probably kill me.” 

“You won’t surf, don’t be stupid,” Zayn admonishes. “You’ll probably be on Val Lookout though, so. That sucks.”

“Stellar,” Louis says. “The point of making it onto the Zephyr team was totally to do things I was already doing when not on the team.”

“You’ll still be able to skateboard,” Niall tries to comfort him. “Just. Maybe wear a shirt for awhile.” 

“So stupid,” he mutters, and Niall knows he’s talking about himself; Louis is fantastic in many ways, and he isn’t vain per se, but Niall knows his sense of pride is the size of the sun. He’s probably embarrassed to hell and back. Niall has to physically check himself from wrapping an arm around Louis’ shoulders, realizing it would probably do more harm than good at the moment.

He tries to change the topic: “Is it your turn for anything tonight?” Part of the deal at the co-op, Louis has explained to them many times, is that everyone rotates around a giant chore wheel in exchange for super cheap rent. 

“Yeah,” Louis sighs. “I’m supposed to help make dinner, but. They’re super understanding. They’ll probably let me just smoke and sleep once they see my back.”

They help Louis inside the co-op—an architecturally strange building, full of small pockets of rooms and sets of dwarf stairs that lead nowhere, full of odd people to match—and deposit him on the one bed out of three in the room he’s claimed as his own. 

Niall digs Louis' pipe and stash out of his bedside drawer for him and repacks the bow. Zayn gives Louis the lighter out of his own back pocket. 

"You're all set then," Zayn says, rapping his knuckles against the crown of Louis' head affectionately. "Take it easy."

“Bye, Lou,” Niall says, kissing his cheek. “You get some rest, okay?” Louis gives him a wan smile and waves them farewell. Niall turns to leave at the sight of him bringing his pipe up to his mouth.

“What a fucking day,” Zayn says on a heaved sigh as they step out from onto the sidewalk. 

“Exhausting,” Niall agrees. “But amazing, too.”

Zayn drapes an arm around Niall’s shoulder and smiles. “Bro.” 

Niall giggles, because he gets it. Just that morning they were facing trial by fire in front of Simon Cowell, and this is the first moment they’ve had since then to stop and let it sink in. “We did it,” he laughs. 

“We fucking did. We fucking made it.”

Niall makes the easy transition from being settled under Zayn’s arm to a full hug, turning into him and tucking his face against the protruding wing of bone that connects Zayn’s shoulder and clavicle. “Congrats, Zayn,” he says. 

Niall feels Zayn’s hand come up to hold the back of his head while he squeezes Niall tighter for a second. “Congrats, Niall.” 

“What’re you up to now?” Niall asks as he pulls back, shifting his weight and balancing his skateboard on his hip.

“Figure we gotta celebrate somehow,” Zayn says, a smirk curling in the corner of his mouth, making his eyes flash mischievously. He shakes his backpack, an old black one that he’s been carrying around all day, and Niall can hear the distinct sound of rattling aerosol cans. “You feel like bombing some walls?”

︾

“Gonna start small,” Zayn says as they roll up P.O.P., popping his board over the curb and grabbing hold of it to carry before unleashing a spray of black paint along a crumbling concrete partition, _DEATH TO VALS_ , fast and loose with little artistry. “Get warmed up,” he grins over his shoulder at Niall, who’s trailing bemusedly behind him. If Harry were here, he’d be photographing the process, he thinks.

“Sick,” Niall mocks. “A masterpiece right there.”

“Hate you,” Zayn laughs, belying exactly how little truth there is to that. “C’mon, then, do one.” Niall shakes his can up and jerks his head, so they coast down the street to another spot. He arcs his arm in large, round motions as he writes on the crumbling flood wall, _LOCALS ONLY!_ Zayn nods approvingly and comes up beside him to tag a quick cartoon skull at the end.

“All ri-ight,” Niall draws out, gleeful as he reaches out his fist to bump Zayn’s. 

“Next stop’s a bit of a cruise,” Zayn says, unslinging the tattered backpack from where it’d been dangling off one bony shoulder. “So let’s pack these up for a sec.” They stow away the cans and then Zayn pushes off, Niall following the swerving silhouette of him through the dark. 

At the northern edge of Dogtown there’s an old fire station, the bottom half of which has been renovated into a bakery. It’s the tallest structure for several blocks and the top half—accessible via the roof of the carpentry shop sandwiched next door—features a wide, blank wall looking out over the whole neighborhood. That’s what Zayn is after. 

“Here we are,” he announces, hushed, as they troop through the uneven back alley. “And up we go.” They climb one-handed up the wrought iron rungs of the ladder that lead to the roof of the carpentry shop, and Niall feels a prickle go down his spine.

They emerge onto the roof under the moonlight, setting their boards down against the rough roofing gingerly, wheels up so they don’t roll right off. Niall makes himself at home a few feet away from the wall, settling down cross-legged as Zayn gets his cans out and snaps gloves on. Zayn had explained his idea for this spot as they skated over, enough at least for Niall to know he won’t be participating this time around. Totally fine by him; he’s entertained enough simply watching Zayn work.

“Zayn,” Niall says, quiet and somber, breaking the calm silence that's settled over them. “Are you really leaving home?” 

Zayn’s shoulders stiffen the slightest bit, a subtle cord of tension in his neck. “Yeah,” he answers.

Niall wants to say a lot of things. Like, _you’re breaking your mother’s heart, man_ , but instead asks, “Where you gonna stay? Join Louis’ co-op?”

Zayn leaves off a stroke of black and taps the can against his thigh. “Even if they had room, way too many people in there for me handle.”

Niall winds his loose shoestring around one finger, unwinds, then winds it tight again, staring at the way the tip of his finger goes red each time. “Where then?” he asks. A movement catches his eye and he looks up to see Zayn running a hand through his hair, head bowed, shoulders tight, every inch of him exasperated. 

“I dunno,” Zayn confesses at length. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll figure it out.” 

“Okay,” Niall relents softly. “I’m sorry, you know I’d offer my place but…” 

Zayn turns around to face him now and grins, a rueful, insincere lift at the corner of his mouth. “No worries,” he says. “Don’t want a repeat of last time.”

Niall grimaces. "Yeah, me neither," he says, remembering the last time Greg had found Zayn over at their house, one morning after they’d crashed together in Niall’s room. Zayn had been too tired to make his way home after smoking. His eyes were morning-soft, the brown warmth of them seeming to leak, sleepily, out the fine, thick brush of his lashes; his hair a garden of black tufts, a texture Niall had found so alluring. He'd wanted to run his fingers through it, just to see if it was as soft as it looked, or if maybe it was deceptively coarse.

Anyway. 

Greg, who had been absent all night, stumbled in while they were eating. Zayn was in a ribbed tank, splitting along the seams, and his boxers. His Levi's were draped over the back of his chair and he was peeling an orange with a deft thumb. Niall had been at the counter buttering toast, freshly plucked from the toaster, scratching at an itch on his ankle with the uneven toes of his other foot—broken once when he was young and never properly healed. There had been a ray of pale sun coming in from the window and it had all felt so peaceful until the door opened.

Greg had looked at Niall, then Zayn, then back at Niall and thrown his hands up and pitched a fucking tantrum about it all. They were not a hotel. They were not a food pantry. This was not _Niall's_ house. Tendrils of noxious alcoholic fume leaked from him while he yelled. Niall couldn't bring himself to look at Zayn, the knife clutched tight in his hand with the pat of butter still on the edge of it. He was praying Greg would wear himself out soon and he and Zayn could slip away. 

But the sound of a chair scraping abruptly across linoleum came first, followed by, "Not lookin' for trouble, man, I'll leave, okay?" Zayn's voice, thick with something Niall hadn't heard before. Like he was trying to be pacifying when he _wanted_ to be something else—something harder, angrier.

He watched, worried, as Zayn gathered his jeans and shoes and edged around the sturdy block of Greg's form to hit the back door, sparing a quick-enough-to-split-hairs second to look over his shoulder at Niall. 

That look—Niall can recall it to this day. Concerned. Forceful. His eyebrows drawn intensely.

So yeah, a repeat would be less than ideal.

Niall follows the contours of his right forearm down to the bones of his wrist, locks the fingers of his left hand around them, biting his lip. "Still sorry about that, man," he says, even though he knows Zayn's never held it against him.

True to form, Zayn shakes his head, makes an absolving gesture towards Niall. "Please. It's not your fault your brother's an asshole." With that, he turns back around, back to his mural, and Niall lapses into thoughtful quiet, hypnotized by the way the paint lays down against the brick wall, as if summoned into sudden existence by the sheer force of Zayn’s will. It’s almost magical—though the smell of it decidedly less so.

In the end, it's like something out of a comic book: a large, amoeba-esque, black polygon emblazoned by a highly stylized “ZAP!” in screaming yellow. Zayn looks pleased, tucking away the empty canisters to toss at a separate location, and it makes sense to Niall. He remembers stepping cautiously across Zayn’s cramped bedroom, over a floor littered with comic books of all kinds.

“Looks fuckin’ sick, man,” he says, beaming bright. Zayn seems to bloom under Niall's praise, chest opening up between shoulders that relax proudly, his tongue pushing against the backs of his teeth as he grins. 

"Thanks, Ni," he says, hefting his bag and going to pick up his skateboard. "You can come along any time if you're always such a good audience."

Niall holds on to that, that piece of information—both that he's been a good audience, and that he's welcome on future excursions. One time, Harry's dad had left his watch on the kitchen table in Harry's house, and Niall had casually picked it up. His pulse jumped into triple time when Harry told him how much it cost. 

It's a similar feeling, he thinks, of holding something more valuable than he's ever held before.

︾

Niall works a six-to-close shift at The Record Store on Thursdays—all his shifts are six-to-close now. Niall doesn't mind too terribly, because Jesy makes the night shift more fun than Niall suspects it is for people without a Jesy Nelson.

This particular Thursday shift is his first after his initiation as a Z-Boy, and Jesy taps her carefully sculpted nails, teal now, against the counter to get his attention. "Hey," she says, as if they haven't been having a conversation across the store for the past ten minutes already. "Party tomorrow at our place."

Niall grins. "Right on. It's been too long."

"Agreed. Bring your skatey friends, if they wanna come."

"I'll pass along the invitation," he says, and that's how on Friday afternoon, as they're setting up the orange cones for slaloms, Niall ends up inviting Liam to a party.

"Lemur? At a party?" Caroline butts in, having overheard from where she's trailing behind them, making sure the cones line up.

"And you too, Caroline, if you want," Niall says instead of drawing attention to the way Liam's face has turned vexed, lips thin and downturned. Caroline jump-skips down to their level and leans an elbow against Liam's shoulder.

"I'll totally go if Liam's going to drink."

"D'you not drink, Payno?" he asks, then hurries to add, "No big deal if you don't, I mean. Invitation still stands."

"I'll think about it," Liam says, taking the stack of cones from Niall's hands—not unkindly but hastily, like he’d rather not be here—and moving on downhill.

"Killjoy!" Caroline calls after him, but the corners of her mouth curl so affectionately that Niall's sure Liam must know she's teasing. “I’ve personally never seen Liam drink, in two whole years,” she tells Niall. “Not even here at the shop when we’re all hanging out.”

Niall shrugs. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t.”

“I know,” Caroline says, sweeping her long hair up into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. “But I'd like to see it for myself. I can’t explain it. I just never really see Liam relax.” She finishes her hair, snapping a thick rubber band into place and dropping her shoulders, sighing. “It’s a little sad.”

The last thing Niall wants is for people to be sad, no matter how long he's known them for. "We'll see if we have any luck tonight," he says, and then, teasing, "Maybe he was just waiting for the right people to party with." Caroline laughs and shoves him down the hill.

Liam does end up giving in, after a whole afternoon of Niall and Zayn bugging him about it and Louis rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Liam, fuckin' say yes so they’ll shut the fuck up.” It’s possible that the amount of attention Liam’s garnered with regards to party attendance is getting under Louis’ skin, but Niall’s not going to indulge him. It’s ridiculous that Louis won’t get along with Liam; Niall wants him to get over it already.

At Louis’ remark, made none too gently, Liam straightens up. “Fine,” he says, a touch rankled. “I’ll need directions.”

︾

If somebody asked Niall when Jesy and Perrie started dating, he wouldn’t be able to say; Perrie’s a part of Jesy in a nebulous way, omnipresent and hard to define. The party's at their apartment—although actually, the place isn’t strictly theirs. Two of their good friends, Jade and Leigh-Anne, stay there as well, though Niall’s less familiar with them. He suspects Leigh-Anne and Louis have hooked up before, but he can’t exactly prove it. He gives her a hug when she lets them in and Niall takes a moment to introduce her to Liam.

“Nice to meet you,” Liam smiles. It’s a nice smile, Niall observes. He trusts that smile. 

“And you,” Leigh-Anne says, ushering them further in so she can close the door. “Welcome to our humble abode, make yourself comfy. Niall knows where everything is.” 

"True," Niall says. "Stick with me and I'll introduce you to everyone." So he does, working around the room, bumping into friends and acquaintances and stopping to introduce Liam each time. He's getting a little bit of joy out of the way Liam doesn't seem to know what to do with the attention, but after the fifth or sixth handshake, he figures it's time for a drink. 

They run into Jade in the kitchen. "Liam, this is Jade," Niall says. "She lives here, too. Jade, Liam, my new teammate." 

"Cool," Jade says, looking up from where she's slicing grapefruits on a cutting board. "I'm mixing a couple drinks real quick, you boys want some?"

"No thanks, not much for the frills myself," Niall says. "Liam? Everybody else loves Jade's drinks, I'm the weird one. She’s a real bartender and everything, man."

“Oh, Niall, sh,” Jade giggles, but Niall plows on.

“No, seriously! Down at The Brig. Never seen so many punks drinking fruity drinks, but that's Jade's magic."

“Sounds awesome,” Liam stutters. “But I'll have whatever you're having.” He looks nervous, and Niall recalls what Caroline had said earlier that day. 

"Hey, man," he leans in a little, aiming for calm and nonjudgmental. "Just be straight with me, you drink before?" 

"Only a little," Liam admits, frowning, looking down.

"Gotcha," Niall nods, making absolutely zero percent of a big deal out of it like Louis might. He straightens up and zigzags around Jade, “‘Scuse me, Jade,” to get to the fridge. “I believe I pitched in for some good ol’ fashioned beer.”

“In the back on the bottom,” Jade tells him, and sure enough, the whole bottom shelf is lined with Schlitz tallboys. Niall takes two, squeezing back around Jade to hand one to Liam. “It’s shit, really,” he says. “But it also mostly tastes like, well. Bad water, so. Good for beginners.” 

“Nice,” Liam says, looking like he’s being presented with roadkill, but he cracks the tab back and takes a sip, then another, and Niall knows he’ll be fine.

About halfway through the tallboy, Louis finds them, creeping up behind Niall and startling him by resting his elbow on Niall’s shoulder. “Hello, boys,” Louis says, leaning his weight in, red Solo cup in hand. His breath smells like grapefruit and alcohol.

"'Sup Louis?" Niall asks, switching his beer to his other hand so that he can wrap one arm back around Louis, hand coming to rest under his ribs. 

"Feelin' good, feelin' great," Louis says. "How's the party, Liam?" he asks, grin pointy. He reminds Niall of a puma sometimes. 

"It's good," Liam says quickly. "Niall's just been, y'know. Showing me around."

"That's Niall," Louis says. "Herding the lost." 

"Louis shut _up_ ," Niall mutters. “Your manners turn that sour in one drink? Lightweight.”

"Says the guy with a fuckin' Schlitz," Louis laughs, delighted, of course, by the jab. Louis loves to argue; Niall knows he shouldn't play into his hand.

“So how did you two meet?” Liam asks abruptly, gesturing between Niall and Louis. His tone is courteous but slightly awkward and desperate, like he practiced conversation starters off of cue cards.

“Ah, young Niall,” Louis declares, clapping Niall on the shoulder heartily. Louis loves telling stories, too, especially where he himself is concerned. It’s a good move on Liam’s part. “We were in the same music class at school. Back when, y’know, I actually attended.”

“Yeah, I took trumpet that year,” Niall says. It wasn’t too terribly long ago, but it feels like another life. “I’d just started and Lou was in remedial. Which really meant getting lumped with middle schoolers to relearn basics.”

“Still can’t read music,” Louis muses.

Niall thinks of the secondhand trumpet he’d rented from the school. “I think I liked it. The instructor was such an ass, though.”

“Mr. Sykes, yeah,” Louis says with a bitter eyeroll. 

“But we made it fun for ourselves. Became friends.” After that, Louis had introduced Niall to his friend Zayn, and Niall befriended Harry in wood shop before eventually suckering him into their small pack as well.

Louis smiles, perhaps reminiscing as much as Niall is. “Poor Nialler here. Took one look at him and knew he needed some corrupting.” He reaches out to tousle Niall’s hair. 

Niall laughs, ducking away. “Nothing was left to corrupt, bro,” he protests, then realizes Liam’s been watching them silently with an amused grin. “What about you?” Niall asks, pushing his hair back out of his face and taking a swig of his beer, studying Liam intently.

Liam’s free hand worms into the pocket of his Levi’s, his grip on his Schlitz can tightening. “What about me?” he hedges.

Niall shrugs. “Play any instruments?”

“A little piano, actually.”

Louis snorts. “Fancy.”

Niall resists the urge to kick Louis in the shins. “That’s cool,” he tells Liam. “How did you end up on Zephyr?”

“My dad taught me to surf when I was really young,” Liam starts. “We used to go to Ocean Beach together. But, ah... he died when I was fourteen. My mom moved us to Venice. So. I started scouting surfing places, got a shot at the Cove after being on Boneyard Duty for a year.” He shrugs, avoiding eye contact. “Guess Simon liked what he saw.”

Louis stays mercifully silent. Niall hopes he feels bad, just a little. 

“Sorry, man,” Niall offers quietly. It feels inadequate, so he raises his beer up. “A toast to your old man, yeah?” He thinks of his mom as the three of them clink their beers together. “Bet he’d be proud of you now.”

Liam huffs a laugh, more air than sound. “Thanks, Niall,” he says, before taking a sip. It’s the first time Niall’s really heard Liam say his name, and something resolves in his mind: Liam must become one of the pack. 

“Okay, I feel like an ass,” Louis mutters to Niall later, when they’re alone in the kitchenette. Niall is looking for some salsa to go with the tortilla chips. He and Zayn had been smoking out on the small deck, Liam long since taken under Harry’s wing for drinking games, and now they both have the munchies. 

“‘Bout Liam? Good, ‘cause you were,” he says cheerfully. He finds the salsa in the back of the fridge. "Aha!” 

“Well,” Louis huffs, leaning against the counter next to Niall and crossing his arms. “He seems like such a... a teacher’s pet type. I dunno. How was I supposed to know he has a sob story?”

Niall stuffs a loaded tortilla chip in Louis’ mouth, who, alarmed, almost chokes on it. “Did you look at me in band class for the first time and think that I had one?” Niall asks. Louis’ face falls, eyelashes slanting as he looks down, a guilty pull to his lips. 

“Niall…” He trails off, rubbing salsa from his cheek. 

“It’s whatever,” Niall insists. “Just be nicer, okay?”

Louis nods. The times that Niall can trump Louis’ instincts are few and far between—mostly because Niall never seriously objects to Louis’ instincts—but he likes to think that Louis heeds his more serious requests. He claps Louis’ shoulder and says, “Maybe all he needs is some of your corrupting, too.” 

He turns to leave but a bolt of concern hits him from where it's been lurking under a haze of Schlitz and pot all night as he's sat out with Zayn, and he pivots back. "Wait, hey Lou. Um. Do you know where Zayn's been staying? I’m, like. Y’know. Worried."

Louis drums his fingers against the counter. "Well. He's been staying every couple nights with me, a night now and then with Harry. He mentioned having a friend on the north side who has a pretty comfortable futon," Louis cracks a humorless smile. "But um. When he's not there I'm pretty sure it's just the parks."

Niall closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I hate that," he says.

"Me too," Louis says. "But you can't confront him about it because he runs away or switches the subject." When Niall opens his eyes again, Louis is looking at him softly. "At least it's not cold in Southern California.” 

“ _Louis_ ,” Niall groans. “This is serious.” 

"What? I am serious," Louis says. "You forget, I've been there," he adds, and Niall feels like the ass now. He adjusts his grip on the bowl of chips. 

"Yeah, but it didn't take you long to get your shit sorted out," Niall says. "I don't even know if Zayn has a clue what to do." 

"He's gonna figure it out, Ni. He'll get a job, or make some friends with a spare room. You can't help him if he doesn't think he needs help, man. Until then, he’s got all of us." 

And that’s the truth if Niall’s ever heard it. 

︾

A few nights later, after he and Jesy have closed The Record Store, they meet up with Harry and Zayn at The Shack; Perrie's got the late shift and Niall's fucking starving.

Moments after Perrie's delivered their hot plates to the table—grilled cheese for Zayn, sausage kebabs for Harry, pizza for Niall, veggie burger for Jesy—there's a flurry of commotion at the walk-up counter. The four of them pause their in-depth conversation about _M*A*S*H*_ and tip their heads over to stare. They're Perrie's only table on the floor, but there's a gangly redheaded kid behind the counter, snapback askew and cheeks flushed as he tries to soothe an upset customer. 

"This is bullshit," the customer says, and flips his boxed slice of pizza toward the redhead as he pivots on his heel and storms out. Niall stares, stunned, while Perrie has emerges from her wait station in the back and runs up to the door.

"And don't come back, asshole!" she yells outside, shaking a dish towel angrily before turning and striding over to the counter. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

The boy’s wiping what are undoubtedly super hot pizza remains off his face, expression vacant like something within him has broken and left him unable register the whole situation. The sauce, when cleaned off, leaves vivid red splotches on his skin.

"I'm fine," he says slowly, beginning to untie his apron. "But I—I'm sorry, Perrie, I just can't anymore," he says with weak, nervous laughter. He doesn't look at her as he rolls his apron up and sets it on the counter, rights his snapback, and walks out of the diner. Perrie stands there, arms dangling at her sides, looking gobsmacked.

She weaves over to their table slowly. “Well,” she sighs. “That was a long time coming. Kid always looked like he was on the verge of a nervous break.” Jesy squirms out of the vinyl booth to hug her tight.

"Yikes," Niall says sympathetically.

"Yeah," Perrie says. "Pretty much." She clings to the hug for another moment before letting go and rolling her shoulders back. She looks down at them thoughtfully. "Any of you guys want a job?" 

For someone who hates strangers in pretty much every capacity, Zayn sure does jump at the chance fast. He even raises his hand.

"Really?" Perrie asks, surprised, ticking one eyebrow up. "You're serious?"

"Yeah," Zayn nods. "I could definitely use the money."

Perrie folds up her dish towel and shoves it into a pocket of her apron. “Well, okay then!” she says. “Can you start tomorrow?” And that’s how Zayn gets a job working at The Shack. It’s out of left field but Niall finds himself reeling with relief more than anything. A job means money, and money will hopefully mean fewer nights a week that Zayn doesn’t have a roof over his head.

To commemorate the occasion, Zayn takes Niall along for some tagging again, as his free nights might be few and far between from now on.

Niall's seated comfortably in a wooden pew because Zayn's broken them into an old, foreclosed church. He guesses it closed sometime within the last decade and the property hasn't been sold; everything's gone from the place save for the rows and rows of dusty pews and the stained glass windows—the designs of which are dimmed and much harder to discern thanks to the plyboard over them outside.

Zayn's upped his operation this time; he'd had Niall help bring in clamp lights and stencils, and is patiently sketching a mural across a whole wall, centering around what Niall’s realized is a giant, coiling serpent. Niall's not sure, but he doesn't think it's a religious comment of any kind. He's pretty positive Zayn just likes snakes. He’s less positive where the fuck Zayn is storing things like clamp lights when he doesn’t even have a permanent address anymore, but he doesn’t ask that.

Instead, he lets his attention wander to and fro, lingering on the abandoned pulpit. There are big hooks in the ceiling where the crucifix probably used to hang. Niall hasn't been to church since his mother’s funeral. He digs his dull nails into the wood grain of the pew. 

"Do you believe in God?" he asks on a whim, turning back to look at Zayn. "Any God at all?" 

Zayn hums, loud enough for the sound to carry across to Niall, and keeps working as he thinks. Niall watches the muscles of his shoulder move as his arm stretches, exposed by the ratty tank top Zayn’s got on. "I dunno. I think I go through stages. If there is a God, I don't really feel close to them right now, but..." 

A long moment comes and goes and Zayn doesn't complete that thought. "But?" Niall prompts gently. 

Zayn does turn around then, shuffling across the stone floor to Niall and slowly taking a seat in the front row pew next to him. "It's all confusing," he begins again. "I read a book once, with a South Asian-American protagonist." Niall only knows what "protagonist" means because Zayn's told him before. "And they described themselves as an 'ABCD.' American-Born Confused Desi," he laughs a little, though he doesn't really sound happy. "That's me." 

Niall nibbles the edge of his thumbnail, uncertain of what to say, but he's saved as Zayn interprets his silence as permission to continue. 

"I think I miss it, a little bit, now that I'm on my own. Like. I remember Dad leading us through prayer, y'know? And I always just, like, zoned out." He sighs heavily, as if it's been weighing on him a long time. "Sometimes..." Zayn's voice thickens, and Niall dares to steal a look over at him, alarmed. His face is downturned, thick thrush of eyelashes mingling together, lips pursing. His fingers are clenching tight around the graphite stick in his hand. "I think I just want to feel, like. A piece of home, I guess." 

Niall cannot have Zayn cry—not that he shouldn't be allowed to, only Niall would probably start crying too. And that'd be embarrassing all around. He scoots over and nudges Zayn. "Zayn, man, have you been to visit your sisters at all?" Niall knows that Louis goes to visit his weekly, takes them on little lunch dates and out to buy penny candy, but he doesn't know if Zayn's been home at all over the past couple weeks. 

Zayn shakes his head no.

"You should," Niall urges. "C'mon. I know it might be hard, but. They probably think about the same stuff, you know? Going through the same experience, right?"

Zayn nods weakly.

Niall straightens up and reaches his arm around him, pulls him into his chest. For however much Zayn bickered with his sisters and complained about them at times, he knows how important they are to him. "Just go over sometime. They're your fuckin' family, man, they wanna see you."

"I don't wanna go back stirring up a big fuss," Zayn mutters, the crown of his skull resting easily in the crook of Niall's neck. 

Niall shrugs, making Zayn's hair tickle his ear. "Then call and ask if they'll meet you out somewhere. Down at the beach, or have 'em visit you at work. Anything." 

“Yeah,” Zayn says softly. “Okay.” 

Niall breathes out slowly, feeling like he just caught something fragile falling off a table, right before it hit the ground. Everything about Zayn lately has been feeling that way, more cherished, more necessary to keep from shattering, like Niall would go to any lengths to make him happy. Zayn's well-being, though always important, has inarguably jumped to the top of his priorities. 

Niall's never seen romantic love in the real world. His parents were never married, but even the marriages he’s seen haven’t looked happy. He's seen love in the movies, sure, but the movies aren't about Dogtown. The romantic comedies aren't about poor kids with fucked up parents. They aren't about a skinny skater boy and his best friend. But maybe, he thinks, they should be.

︾

If there is any common knowledge about Jesy and Perrie, it’s that they’ll take any excuse to throw a party. Zayn’s first official shift at The Shack seems to qualify, Perrie claiming that she needs to initiate Zayn into the subculture of food service, and then deciding that everyone should come along to bear witness.

He observes it all from the couch—a mangy piece of furniture in an unfortunate shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, rescued from an alley—with a beer in his hand. It’s shitty Schlitz but it’s cold, and Niall’s not complaining. 

Their little world is so fascinating to him like this, compressed and layered together so intimately. Harry’s leaning in on a conversation between Leigh-Anne and Caroline, Zayn is having a quiet chat with Perrie while he lets the fridge hold him up, and Louis looks like he’s trying to convince Liam that kegstands are good life choices. Niall figures he should go check on that, actually, because Liam doing a kegstand would certainly be a crowning moment for any party, but he finds his attention flickering back to Zayn.

He has the inane realization that it’s unfair how good Zayn looks even so casually. He frowns at himself and snatches that passing thought before it’s gone, re-loops it in his head and plays it back, trying to justify it through his tipsy haze. It’s just. The lighting is shitty, and they’ve been skating since 4pm, and Zayn still looks. So…

Pretty. 

The grimy bulb overhead paints crescents of shadow under the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, serving to render him even sharper than he already is. Niall watches as Zayn dips his head to lick a stray drop of condensation from his beer from the back of his thumb, his tongue a quick pink flash and his gaze angling out from beneath his ridiculous eyelashes—Zebra lashes, Louis likes to tease—making him look coy for that split-second.

“Focus,” Niall says aloud to himself, redirecting his stare to the gouged hardwood floor beneath his shoes. He should get up, really, move around, mingle. But he’s warm and lazy and... he shakes his head a little, because for some reason, underneath the contentment, there’s a slight but persistent shade of sadness, of restlessness, watching everything going on around him. He can’t puzzle out where it’s coming from, only knows it’s there, making him melancholy.

“Boo,” says a voice in his ear, and he startles to the side, turning to see who it is. Jesy comes around the side of the couch and laughs at him. “Hey. Come smoke with me?” she asks.

“Why not,” he sighs, chuckling now as well, heaving himself up from the low seat of the couch and following her out to the slipshod deck. 

Jesy taps her pack against the railing before jimmying a cigarette out. She offers one to Niall but he declines; he’ll be content with stealing a puff or two of hers. 

He doesn’t know why he says it—because he wasn’t even aware it was on his mind—but as Jesy lights up in the darkness and tips her head back to exhale her first drag, he asks, “What’s it like, bein’ in love?”

He’s not sure what kind of reaction to expect, and watches her, slightly wary if he’s honest, as she chuckles and ducks her chin down. A spiral curl untucks itself from behind her ear and falls in front of her face, but Niall can see her thinking anyway, the way her eyelids flutter. She hums and looks up. “It’s wonderful,” she answers. “It really is. But it’s painful, too. It’s hard work, I think that’s what nobody tells you. Love, like, when you put it into an actual relationship, it’s hard work.”

“What do you mean?” Niall needles as she takes another drag. 

“I mean... oh,” she sighs, smoke trailing out. “How do I put it?” She rubs at her lower lip contemplatively. “It’s like a science of compromising. You have to decide what you’re going to be selfish about and what the other person gets to be selfish about. Nobody told me to expect that part.” 

Niall huddles in closer to her, shoulder to shoulder. “Such as?”

“Oh, come on, you know. Like. It happens in friendships, too, yeah? Little things. Like, you never listen to Silverhead in Louis’ presence. Or you choose horror flicks instead of comedies because you know that’s what Zayn loves. But you do get stubborn when it comes to certain other things.”

“Okay…” Niall follows.

“Right, so. That happens, like, on a bigger scale in a relationship, I think. Even if it’s the biggest, best love you’ve ever felt. Both people have to make sacrifices. Good things require effort, or. Whatever.”

Niall thinks about surfing, about skateboarding, about all the things he’s put so much _effort_ into, what he's sacrificed for, and finds he can relate to it that way. But still. “Doesn’t sound wonderful,” he mopes. 

Jesy reaches up and ruffles his hair. “I’m only saying it’s three-dimensional. The wonderful parts are really wonderful.” She pauses to offer Niall her cigarette and he takes it gratefully, pulling a single drag before passing it back. “I mean, Perrie is lovely,” she says quietly, smiling a private sort of smile. “Wouldn’t trade her for the world.” Niall presses the backs of his knuckles to Jesy’s cheek to confirm that, yes, her face is hot. 

“You two are gross,” he says, even as he giggles, mustering enough sarcasm aside in case Jesy accidentally takes him seriously for once. 

“Oh, yeah,” she half-laughs, half-scoffs. “So gross that you’re jealous about it.”

Niall holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “You caught me.” 

Jesy taps her ash out over the railing. “So, who is it, then?”

“Who's what?” Niall plays dumb, fingering the ratty hem of his t-shirt. 

Niall can _tell_ that Jesy is rolling her eyes, even though he’s looking away from her and out into the middle-distance. 

“Who’s got under your skin enough to make you go asking about love?” she rephrases. 

Niall’s not sure why he doesn’t bust out a slew of awful jokes, or do something like pretend to fall over the railing to his death to serve as a distraction. Maybe it’s the specific amount of alcohol he’s had, or maybe it’s Jesy’s private Perrie smile. Instead of any avoidance tactics, he finds himself asking, “You really wanna know?”

He can feel Jesy sit up straight next to him, and he wishes he’d bothered to bring a beer out here with him. “Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” she says; her voice is soft in a new way now, like she’s afraid of scaring him, which is so strange to him—not that she has the capacity to be gentle, but that he’d ever have need for it.

He turns to look at her. The cast of the alley lamp is throwing glittering white crescents into her eyes, making them that much more imploring, and he can feel his resistance fade. His shoulders slump, defeated, and he gets it out in one rushed breath, “I think it’s Zayn.” It’s the first time he's said it aloud, and as soon as the syllables register, it feels much more consuming than the tentative exploration of the idea that he'd been doing alone. Not bad, just heady. Real. 

Jesy’s lips purse to one side, and she nods her head slowly. She narrows her eyes and stares hard at him, analytical. “I feel like I’m being trusted with a lot right now,” she says.

Niall feels prompted to answer. “You are.” He holds a finger up to his lips in a shushing gesture that might seem silly to someone who doesn’t know him as well as Jesy, who he’s sure understands his sincerity. “Don’t tell a soul.” 

“I won’t,” Jesy says, emphatic, and crosses her heart. She blinks a few times. “Is this where I ask, like, if you have a plan to do something about it, or—"

“Nah,” Niall says quickly. “This is where you offer to take me to The Shack and buy me cheese fries.”

Jesy cuffs him lightly upside the head. “Keep dreaming, boy.”

︾

Being awake occurs to him slowly, his brain gradually registering someone's fingertips drifting back and forth across his stomach. The rest of him solidifies in spatial awareness after that: he's on his back, there's a crick in his neck from how it's been turned to the left in his sleep, a glob of drool hangs at the corner of his mouth, he definitely has morning wood, and the line of his right shoulder and side are pressed against something— some _one_ —else, warm and breathing. Someone is rubbing his stomach. 

He groans softly, shifting to stretch one leg out. The unknown fingers brush down tentatively, slipping under the elastic of his boxers and resting there. Niall's eyes snap open. 

He hates that he can't remember her name. 

She's a friend of Jesy's, that much he knows—which may or may not land him in trouble. She smiles as he looks at her, trying to jog his memory. She's got eyeliner smeared all around her brown eyes. A freckle on the tip of her round nose, and one on her top lip, too. She's cute. He feels honored, acutely. 

"Hey, babe," he rasps. He tries to discern without moving how hungover he is. Not too terribly, if the lack of roiling nausea in his gut is anything to go by. Just a dim pang of headache and a severe case of cottonmouth. "Did we fuck last night?" he asks, hoping he's not blowing foul morning breath in her face. He knows he got shitty but he didn’t think he actually blacked out. Now, though, he can't remember how he got to this bed with this girl. He can’t remember anything past getting his hand snagged near the makeshift pong table, trying to interpret the flirtatious glances of someone. Brown eyes. He guesses that matches up.

"Jordan," she supplies him—either because "babe" bothered her or because she knows he can't remember—and he nods like he knew that. "And no, I. I think we both fell asleep." He makes a considering noise and looks up at the ceiling. He's not expecting it when she kisses his shoulder. "I can make up for it now. This is my place." 

He wants to tell her she doesn't have to make anything up. She doesn't owe him for sleeping in a bed next to him; if anything, he owes her—it's her place. But her voice is coy, and he hesitates as he watches her push her hair off her forehead. Those brown eyes. 

He thinks of Jesy’s eyes glittering in the dark last night. He can remember all of _that_ perfectly, everything he said. Out loud.

He feels a little ugly as he looks at Jordan and thinks, _Why not_? 

"Yeah, c'mere, like this," he murmurs, staying on his back and drawing her in so that she slings one leg over his, snugging his thigh between hers. She kisses the side of his neck, and he closes his eyes while she tugs his boxers down and jerks him off, unhurried and relaxed. Confident that she'll get him off. Niall sighs, content to curl his toes and squirm into the mattress. There's a jarring moment where he shifts his weight into her chest and finds himself wondering what a skinny, hard one would feel like instead of the breasts there. If the hand in his boxers were large and rough with callouses. 

He comes over her fist with a gasp, his back arching of its own accord.

As if to repent for his straying thoughts, he rolls over her and pushes her knees wide apart, lips down her bare stomach and over her cunt lazily before setting to work, eating her out with a single-minded focus he hasn't exercised the morning after drinking in a long time. Niall hasn't really been with many people, many girls, but he's at least been taught the basics of this before—he starts by spelling the alphabet. He's probably not great but he tries to be, and doesn't think she's faking the tremor in her hands as she sifts through his hair, her bitten-off moans, the way she tightens around him when she tells him, breathless, that she's coming as he fucks his tongue in and out of her while thumbing her wet clit ruthlessly.

 _So there_ , he thinks to himself as he sits back on his haunches shakily, dragging his hand across his face to wipe his mouth. She thanks him with another smile, and after they clean up, she leads him into the kitchen for two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice. His stomach growls but it'll suffice for now. He doesn’t think either of them particularly feel like having him linger.

He leaves Jordan’s basement apartment and feels hollow as the late morning light washes over him. Tells himself to get a fucking grip. He squints up at the sun and, unsure of where to go, heads to Harry’s.

His decision bites him in the ass when Harry lets him in and Louis and Zayn are already sitting on the couch. Harry stumbles back to join them, like a row of ducks, and returns his attention to whatever marathon of cartoons is on the tv. 

Louis throws his arms wide. “Nialler!” 

Niall grimaces, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 

“Didn’t see where you got to last night. Come and join us, Harry’s going to make breakfast after this episode.” Louis pats the cushion next to him, right in between him and Zayn, who is openly assessing Niall with a curious tilt to his head. Niall can’t look him in the eye. He forces himself to the couch, to take a seat, because if he didn’t it’d be weird and Louis would know something was up.

Louis knows something is up anyway. He relaxes against Niall for half a second before sitting up straight and turning bodily to face him. He leans in, sniffing, eyes narrowed. “You smell like sex, Niall,” he says, grinning like a cat who caught a canary. Niall feels a sudden affinity for every figurative dead, yellow bird.

He doesn’t have to look to feel the way Zayn stiffens next to him. “Shut up, man,” he mutters, shrinking under the scrutiny.

“You do,” Louis persists joyously, and now Harry is peering over at him with wide eyes, too. “You reek of pussy.” 

“Louis,” Zayn says, dark and slow like the curling thunderhead of an oncoming storm. Like when he chastised Louis for being a brat when Liam was doctoring his back.

Niall launches to his feet; he’s broken into an anxious sweat and wants nothing more than to get away from the attention. “I’ll go have a fucking shower then, you rotten ass,” he snaps, too tired to hide his ire. Louis is making congratulatory whooping noises as he leaves and Niall wishes he could laugh, that he could smile and feel sated and bump Louis’ fist. Instead every inch of his skin where Zayn was pressed against him feels shoved full of livewires.

Niall locks the bathroom door behind him and resigns himself to the fact that it’s going to be a long day.

︾

The thing about skateboarding is that they can do it almost anywhere; their usual spots include outside the Zephyr shop and other steep hills across town, asphalt lots at public schools, an actual old skate park leftover from the 60s, and every street or crooked alley in between. It feels so limitless, like that, so unrestricted, and that’s what makes it really different from surfing. Surfing will always be Niall’s first love, but there’s only one place you can do it: the water, further limited by the fact that the waves are only good a small percentage of the day.

When Niall pulls open _SURFER_ to read about Bertlemann, Liddell, Buttons, and other greats, for the most part, he’s inspired by their style. Motivated to hit the water again, find the secrets it’s been giving the legends; determined to learn their moves. Ultimately, though, that wild frontier has been pioneered. Maybe it’s just Niall, but there’s a distinct feeling that he could never be original, never chart any new territory. 

That’s not the case with skateboarding, though, which feels relatively unmined to him, bursting with diamonds waiting to be found. The first wave of skateboarding hadn’t had much longevity, but Niall recalls with perfect clarity what was par for the course in regards to tricks and moves and what would get a good score in a competition—

—and that’s not what the Zephyr team is about at all. In much the same way that the Z-Boys have rejected outsiders from the Cove, they’ve rejected outside influence from nearly every other aspect of their lives. Simon isn’t busting their balls in practice about style and innovation just to conform to the previous skating ideals, he’s doing it because he wants them to be brand new. 

“I want you to get in their faces,” Simon says, “I want you to fuck their shit up.” Niall’s confident they’ve all taken that directly to heart, throwing themselves into practice with abandon, disregarding their physical limitations with a specific kind of surety, like they don't care if they get hurt. 

It helps, to have a way that he can hurt that isn't looking at Zayn and trying to fight back what he wants. To have goals to aspire to that aren’t about getting Zayn to look at him the way that Jesy looks at Perrie. It’s a relief to have an outlet that commands all of his attention, all of his drive. The less time he spends in his head, the better.

︾

The bones of his routine alter. What used to be surf, nap, work, drink, and sleep changes to surf, work at the shop, skate, work at The Record Store, drink, and sleep. Somehow the substitution of a few elements makes everything feel more satisfying, more fulfilling, in a way Niall didn’t even know he was previously lacking before.

As time goes on, Niall gets used to seeing all sorts of oddities around the shop. Strange people, strange things, strange antics, and he’s pretty sure not too much would surprise him anymore. 

He does, however, stop short in his tracks one morning as they’re rolling in from P.O.P. together, hair still wet and salt drying in crackling coagulations on their skin, when he sees Harry sitting on the curb.

“Harry?” he asks, alarmed, kicking his board up and jogging the last paces to Harry. “Everything okay?” 

Harry stands and brushes the gravel off his palms on to his jean cutoffs. He looks at Niall quizzically. “Yeah?” 

Niall doesn’t get another word in before Caroline breezes by. “I asked him to come,” she tosses over her shoulder casually, and Niall can feel his eyebrows take a mile hike up his forehead. 

“Gross, what is Hairball doing here?” Louis asks as he comes rolling up behind them. He contradicts his harsh greeting with an affectionate tousling of Harry’s unkempt curls.

“Um, like,” Harry starts, pushing his hair back, unable to keep the stretching smile off his face. His dimples look like perfectly round indentations in bread dough. “Caroline, um, noticed my camera at the party? So we got to talking, or whatever. She asked me to come, like, take pictures of you guys practicing.”

“Well, look at that,” Louis crows. “Styles is going to be useful!”

Niall holds his fist up for Harry to bump. “Right on,” he says. “Make ‘em good, so we can keep you around, man.” He likes the prospect of Harry tagging along with them; he’d missed spending as much time with him, and if it works, he’ll seriously kiss Caroline’s feet for finding a way to draw their friend off the peripheral and into their new world.

“Fail this mission and—” Louis drags a finger across his throat in a slitting gesture.

Harry rolls his eyes but grins, more excited than intimidated by half. “Think I got it,” he says, and Niall knows he does. The Styles’ house features a finished basement, and a portion of it has been quartered off and repurposed as a dark room for Harry. Niall’s only glimpsed it when not in use, never when Harry’s working, but he has seen what comes out of it. Harry may not have been destined for aquatic sports, but he certainly turns them into beautiful photographs. 

Harry spends the afternoon jogging up and down hills, hopping on top of trash cans and cars to get action shots of them practicing. Niall does him a favor and doesn’t call out how much time he spends on Caroline; the photos will speak for themselves. He's content to watch Harry actually throw himself into something, into what he's passionate about, and it's nice to have his presence merge with this world that's been kept relatively separate from him. At the end of the day, Harry's looking sunburned but hyper, and he turns down an invite to The Shack in favor of getting back home, probably itching to get into his dark room.

He must spend all night in there because he comes back to the shop the next day, photos tucked safely into a crisp manila folder that he hands over to Simon as if he's handing over his newborn child. 

Simon rifles through the photos carefully, lingering on each shot, treating them with a consideration that he usually reserves for the boards he crafts. After he's thoroughly analyzed the last one, he looks up, aviators glinting. The whole group’s been standing by, waiting to hear the verdict, and they burst into applause now upon hearing the impressed "You're in, kid." Simon slides the photos back into their folder. "This is good stuff. Wouldn't mind trying to submit some of it to a few publications, would you?" Harry looks so proud he might cry, reaching across the counter to shake Simon's hand.

"No, sir, wouldn't mind at all."

︾

One of the biggest distinctions between Niall’s Pre- and Post-Zephyr life is how much barbecue he consumes. The guys at the shop are always willing to open a couple six packs and get the grill fired up. If Harry’s is his second home, the Zephyr shop becomes his third. Winding down after a brutal practice in the back—as long as he doesn’t have a record store shift—becomes habitual.

It’s just such an evening, sometime shortly after Harry’s been inducted, and Niall finds himself reclining lazily in a battered folding chair between Zayn and Harry, looking on casually as Liam tries to grill, while both Louis and Simon nitpick technique over his shoulder. Niall shakes his head, tilts his neck back and ends up gazing at the sky. It’s a warm orange color, the clusters of fluffy clouds bathed in the glow of the sunset. An airplane's flying overhead. 

He startles when Zayn rustles next to him and asks loudly to the group, “What’s that?” Niall follows his line of sight to what appears to be a shoddily constructed tent. It’s brown and weathered; Niall’s not surprised he missed it at first.

“Oh, that’s mine!” A slightly older member of the surf team pipes up, grinning. His name is Aiden. “My parents kicked me out a couple weeks ago, so Simon lets me camp back here, s’long as the weather’s nice.” 

He doesn’t look put-out for a second, explaining his life situation like it’s simple mathematics. Niall surveys the shaggy, bruised collection of them and supposes there’s no point in lying, no point in keeping it a secret. They’re like family here anyway.

︾

At The Shack, Perrie stops by their table with a tray held aloft in one hand and the other hand perched on her cocked hip. “You guys should come over later. Jade’s dealer gave her a discount on a bulk order, so we’re trying a few kinds out.” She gives a wink before twirling away to collect garbage from recently vacated tables, and Niall chews at the edge of his thumb nail while he considers it.

“Well sick,” Harry says. “We’re going, right?”

“I’ll go,” Louis says, wiping ketchup and french fry grease from his fingers onto his jeans. 

“Yeah, same,” Liam chimes, seemingly ten times more comfortable with the concept of a party these days. Niall feels a faint thump of pride in his rib cage.

“Someone should stop by Caroline’s and ask her,” Harry suggests, aiming for neutral and failing. Niall can see through him better than an x-ray. “She seemed to enjoy the last one. Liam, you know where she lives, right?” 

Liam’s twirling his straw around in his Coke thoughtfully. “Yeah, or we could just ask Perrie to use the phone and call her. Less creepy.”

Louis waves his hand through the air impatiently “Zayn? Niall?”

Niall’s attention has shifted to making patterns in a pile of salt he dumped onto the vinyl checkered table cloth. He shrugs. “Dunno guys. Not feeling it.” 

“What?” Louis gasps, and Harry leans in with an air of genuine concern to feel his forehead. “Are you ill?”

Niall bats Harry’s hand away, forcing a laugh. “Nah. Just tired. Probably gonna just, y’know, take it easy.”

“So take it easy at the girls’ place with a joint and an armchair,” Louis argues as if it were common sense. Maybe it is. It definitely sounds nice, but Niall can feel his socializing quota for the month being pushed a bit, his skin itching a little as he sits propped between Zayn and Liam. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow. No worries,” he says with finality.

“Me too,” Zayn says, and when Louis guffaws he persists apologetically. “Long day, bro.” Which is probably true. Zayn had been finishing his own eight hour shift when they all arrived. “We’ll party soon, though.” Louis frowns and looks from Zayn to Niall and back again.

“Fucking weirdos,” he concludes, and thankfully the conversation shifts from there when Harry asks a passing Perrie if he can use the restaurant phone. 

Eventually they pay the bill—markedly cheap because of Perrie’s generosity when applying Zayn’s employee discount—money in crinkled wads pulled from pockets and shoes. Liam is the only one with an actual wallet, and he shakes his head at them all as he counts out enough to tip Perrie well. After that they disperse into the temperate night. Harry turns around to wave at Niall and Zayn, who are hovering at the edge of the walk, as he trots off with Louis and Liam.

Once the boys have made it a decent distance away, Zayn lists sideways to bump shoulders with Niall. Niall hums; the contact feels like a question. 

“Don’t feel like going home,” Niall says, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he rolls his board side to side with one foot idly. The sun has set entirely while they’ve been inside eating, and as he watches the retreating figures of their friends, off to the girls’ place, he feels disoriented. 

“What do you feel like, then?” asks Zayn. He'd shrugged evasively when Harry had asked about his plans for the night and kept to Niall’s side. Zayn’s eyes flash as the headlights of a passing car illuminate them and Niall has to look away. “Not the party?” 

Niall stretches his shoulders back and runs a hand through his hair. “Nah,” he sighs. “I dunno. Not feeling like people. But I’m bored?”

“Restless,” Zayn supplies.

“Yeah,” Niall nods. “Restless.”

“C’mon,” Zayn says, jerking his head. “Got an idea.” He doesn’t explain further before he kick-pushes away on his own board.

When they cruise through the intersection of Bay and Main, right past the shop, an inexplicable hybrid between suspicion and understanding clicks in his mind. He doesn’t say anything as they roll down to P.O.P., just breathes in the ocean air. 

It’s not exactly a class joint to begin with, and the dark seduces a whole other contingent of folk to Dogtown at night, but Niall doesn’t balk. It’s not like he’s got anything of value on him in the first place, except his board, which he grips tightly after he kicks it up to trudge across the sand. Someone’s lit a trashcan fire down the way but Zayn and Niall avoid them, weaving through the pilings, Niall following Zayn’s lead.

They make it all the way to the waterline before Zayn comes to a halt and drops down, using his board as a seat, kicking off his grimey Vans. The socks he peels off are so full of holes that Niall wonders why Zayn bothers—Niall forgets about socks most of the time.

“Come on down,” Zayn encourages when he notices Niall’s not moving, which Niall himself hadn’t realized, so he animates quickly as he snaps from his thoughts. He toes his own Vans off and kicks them up to drier sand before plopping down on his board, sinking the wheels into the wet sand. He doesn’t ask why Zayn’s brought them here, because even if he’s not totally certain, he has some idea. The sound of the waves lapping up against the beach, the tickle of seafoam at his feet are soothing to Niall—and, he suspects, to Zayn too. 

Zayn reaches up, slideing loose a cigarette he’d previously wedged behind his ear, and lifts his butt up to rummage in his back pocket for a lighter. “Damn,” he curses. “Fuckin’ forgot I gave my lighter to Louis.”

“Hold up,” Niall says; he stretches out to get his hand in his front pocket, where he’s got a spare lighter stashed, explicitly in case the boys lose theirs. He palms it off to Zayn, who thanks him with a silent elbow-nudge and lights up with the accrued ease of a seasoned smoker, cupping his hand around the flame against the breeze. “Keep it,” he insists when Zayn tries to hand it back. “Got a ten pack at home somewhere.” 

Zayn shrugs, flicking it on and off again before stuffing it in his pocket. They sit in amicable silence for awhile, Niall casting his gaze out over the waves, watching how the reflection of the moon ripples in the water. 

“You do this often?” Niall finds himself asking, quiet so as to not break the sense of tranquility—only marred by the drifting scent of burning trash and Zayn’s cigarette smoke.

“Yeah, I guess. When I need to think,” Zayn answers.

“You do too much of that,” Niall teases. “It’s gross.”

He expects some sort of one-two punch back about how Zayn’s just compensating for the rest of them, but it doesn’t come. Instead a thin exhale precedes a slow, “Yeah, maybe. Dunno.”

Niall frowns, and finally tears his eyes off the rhythmic tide to look over. Zayn’s face is impassable, beautiful but seemingly vacant. “Hey,” he murmurs, bringing a knee up to knock against Zayn’s. “What’s up?”

Zayn shifts his weight, leaning his elbows on his knees, forearms stretched out and cigarette dangling between his fingertips. He glances sidelong at Niall briefly. “Do you ever think about getting out of this place?”

Niall finds himself biting his nails as he searches for an answer. “Not really?” he says at length, uncertain. “I can’t imagine where else I would go. Or, maybe. I mean, like, I think I imagine being other places, but. Don’t really have the means to get there so I just, don’t. Don’t really entertain it.” 

Zayn nods; Niall hasn’t taken his eyes off him, his profile so regal, awash in gentle moonlight and purple shadows. “Sure,” Zayn’s agreeing. “I feel that.”

There’s always been something, something _else_ about Zayn that Niall can’t discern for the life of him. Something secret that seems to fuel him through sleepless nights and shitty weather and hundreds of wipe outs. It’s like an eternal flame is lit in Zayn’s heart, and Niall can see the glow in his eyes when he’s daydreaming. It’s beautiful but sometimes, like now, it feels like a threat to the whole order of Niall’s universe. Niall doesn’t know what he’s waiting for when it comes to Zayn, to his feelings for Zayn, only knows that there's a constricting pressure in his mind, telling him _now is not the right time_. He more or less agrees with that. He can't say for certain when the right time will be, but he prays that it's before Zayn gets a ticket out of Dogtown, away from Niall.

“Zayn,” he says, scared, “you thinking of leaving us?” 

The question startles a laugh out of Zayn, a quiet and genuinely surprised giggle. He lassoes one elbow around Niall’s neck, drawing him in, letting his hand rest over Niall’s heart. “Nah,” he replies easily. “Not leaving you. Just wish we could all go somewhere together.”

︾

"Listen up rats,” Simon calls for their attention a few days later inside the shop, and everybody collectively stops what they’re doing to make their way over to the front desk. Niall leans against the corner of it, automatically fingering the edge of a peeling sticker as he watches Simon flap a copy of their local newspaper around above his head for a second. He slaps it down on the counter and stabs a circled article with his finger. 

“The Del Mar Nationals,” he announces, and Niall can practically hear the capital letters in his voice. “First official skateboarding competition since the 60’s.” Simon smooths the crinkled paper flat with his palms. “Coming up next month. About three hours away from here... If you heathens promise to practice harder than ever, I’ll take you.” 

The shop immediately goes up in a chorus of affirmations, cursing, and the pounding of their fists against the countertop. 

“Yeah?” Simon asks derisively. “‘Bout time you made a name for yourselves.” He rolls the paper up tightly and swats it upside Louis’ head. “Go break some bones, then!”

︾

Niall wouldn't say that going home is risky business, exactly, but it is a bit dicey. There's a 60% chance his brother won't be home, and a 100% chance that if he is home, he's drunk. The last remaining variable is what kind of drunk he is—there are two kinds: melancholic and nearly comatose, or mean and mobile. 

He's gotten lucky recently, even slept a few nights in his own bed, but that doesn't stop his guard from being up as he lopes up to their back door. There's nothing Niall can actively do, but he knows the shift is happening internally, the way his chest tightens—it feels as if his heart is literally hardening, and his body bows inwards a bit to compensate for the imagined weight. He catches his reflection in the window of the door and the grim expression his own face greets him with doesn't surprise him, lips drawn down from any semblance of a smile, eyes vacant. 

He leans forward til his reflection fuzzes out of focus, peering through the window and into their tiny kitchen. He can't see any signs of Greg; the lights are off, there's a cluster of wasted beer cans on the small breakfast table for two, and a load of unwashed dishes in the sink, but none of that is too indicative. 

Niall bites his lip and tucks his hand beneath the ragged collar of his shirt for a moment, reemerging with the length of twine he wears around his neck looped over his fingers; a key dangles from it, warm from laying against Niall's chest. He gets the door unlocked and makes it through the kitchen without a sound. The house isn't big, and Niall treads carefully as he surveys each room. When he makes it to the last room and there's no Greg, he sighs through his nose in relief, turning to walk back to the kitchen, his footsteps muted across the carpet. 

He scoops all the beer cans into the trash and lays into the dishes, scrubbing vigorously and setting them out on the drying rack with care. Greg won’t thank him, or even acknowledge the task, but if they go neglected he’ll definitely use it against Niall, so it must be done. The cleaning doesn’t even bother him too bad; it’s always been slightly meditative for him somehow. Monotonous. Easy. After he’s finished, he uses his jeans to wipe off his hands—bright red from the hot water—and goes about finding something to eat.

There's still a healthy stock of soups on the shelf from when he last went grocery shopping, so Niall plucks a can of beef stew down. All he's got to do is pour it in a pot on the stove and let it heat up, so that's ideal. It won't fill him up for the rest of the night, but Harry usually has leftovers. 

The stew is just beginning to really simmer, bubbles surfacing and popping in rapid succession, steam lofting up, when Niall hears the front door open and shut.

 _Okay, okay, okay,_ Niall thinks, frenzied, and his first reaction is to reach over and turn the stove off. He grabs the pot and spins to set it in the sink. _Be chill_ , he tells himself. There probably would have been enough time to hoof it out the back door, but Niall spills a bit of the stew over the rim of the pot as he's setting it down and it burns his hand. Reflexively, he yanks his hand up to lave the burn with his tongue, wincing, and that two-second window for escape slams shut.

He hears Greg grunt as he stumbles through the doorway between the living room and kitchen. Niall closes his eyes for a fleeting moment, steeling himself before turning aboutface.

"Hey," he greets, carefully neutral. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in four or five days.

Greg is drunk, that much is obvious simply from the watery sheen of his eyes, the way his body lists to one side. Probably stopped at the bar with his work pals after his shift and had a few too many. It's as much as Niall expected, but he forces himself to keep signs of unease inside. Greg has the tendency to misinterpret everything he does or says when he’s like this—the smallest thing could become catalyst for a blow-out. 

Greg stares at him, jaw askew, without speaking for long enough that it prompts Niall to swallow and ask, “How was work?”

Greg’s face, beaten far past his age, contorts into a snarl. “Shit,” he mutters. “Fucking slaving away only to find you here eating us out of house an’ home,” he accuses. Niall supposes his attempt to trash the stew in the sink wasn’t enough to negate the implication of him standing in the kitchen.

He should leave it be but it’s not the first time Greg’s made such allegations. “Got paid yesterday,” Niall demures, trying to keep his gaze up, but fixed just shy of Greg’s actual eyes. “Doing my part.” 

“Like fuck,” Greg spits, hobbling further into the kitchen and blindly grabbing for the back of a table chair to lean on. “At your little baby job, that it? That record store bullshit?” His free hand is gesticulating aggressively, and it keeps throwing his balance so he’s lurching towards Niall intermittently, who is doing his best to not flinch. 

Niall wants to say a lot of things but he grinds his teeth together instead, nostrils flaring. He’s sure that talking back at this point won’t end well for anyone; it hasn’t historically, but apparently his silence is even more infuriating.

It’s not that he wasn’t expecting it, but he’d been mentally withdrawing from the whole situation, and the fraction of time that reveals Greg’s movement to be an actual lunge and not a drunken wobble passes Niall too quickly for him to react, and Greg lands a hit right across his face. It’s sloppy, a loosely curled fist, lacking follow-through because Greg’s upset his own balance too much and is now falling, but it’s got the right momentum and—it hurts, of course it does, forcing a startled yelp out of Niall.

He recoils from the punch, slamming his back into the counter top, hand flying up on instinct to cradle his cheek. His fingers dip down to swipe his mouth tenderly; Greg wears a bulky metal ring and Niall’s lip is stinging. When he draws his fingers away, there’s a smear of shiny red across them. 

Greg’s crumpled to the floor, the sound of it like a dropped sack of oranges, dead weight awkwardly splayed. Niall gazes down at him, not shocked enough to be stricken, more so trying to gauge whether it’s over. 

After a few moments, Greg drags one arm up to settle across his face, covering his eyes, the movement slow as if he’s pushing through mud. To Niall’s horror, Greg’s mouth starts to quiver. “Sorry,” he croaks, the sound a jagged scrape against the hyperintense hush. “Sorry, sorry.” 

Niall rips his gaze up, stares at the ceiling to collect himself, to swallow past the bile pooling in the back of his throat. Then he steps over Greg, grabs his board from beside the back door, and leaves as fast as he can.

The air has a bit of a chill to it as he hastens through his neighborhood, sure to pink his cheeks up even more than they already must be. Niall ducks his head down against his chest and lets his feet carry him along the route he’s memorized to Harry’s house.

He doesn’t think he’s going to cry, but he can’t seem to control the way he’s trembling all over, and he presses the soft skin of his wrist against his lips in effort to stifle the whimper rising up involuntarily from his throat. 

He chastises himself for being so upset; it’s not as if this is the first or even the second, third, or fourth time that Greg’s come at him—Niall’s kind of lost track. Greg had never prescribed to the caring older brother image, exactly, but when they were younger it was all chalked up to roughhousing. All boys played that way. All boys must lie limp beneath their older brothers while having their heads held down against the hard floorboards and globs of saliva spat in their face, Niall thought. The trials and tribulations of being younger, smaller. 

But then their mom died. Niall was eleven. Greg was old enough to assume legal guardianship of him. Greg was also old enough to harbour a grudge against responsibility forced upon him too soon. Truly, when Niall reflects on the day of their mother’s funeral—of the way Greg held his hand tightly through the service, and kept him under his arm while they lowered the casket—he doesn’t think Greg hated him yet. 

Sometimes, he dares to think that Greg doesn’t actually hate him now, either. Niall clenches his eyes tight for a brief moment and replays the haggard _Sorry, sorry,_ in his head. It’s the first time Greg’s apologized to him after hurting him, and Niall can’t get it out of his mind.

“Uhg,” he seethes aloud, trying with a vain shake of his head to propel himself out of the dense, volatile pool of thought. Nothing ever comes of dwelling on it. Greg’s his brother and sometimes he’s aggressive. Nothing unheard of. Some kids are starving to death. 

Niall throws his board down purposefully, letting it roll ahead of him before running to hop on it, picking up speed quickly. He wishes he could ride fast enough to escape the jungle in his head. He crouches low to turn a corner, kick-pushes to regain his momentum, and coasts down a gentle slope with his hands clasped behind his back, shoving every lingering memory of Greg hitting to hurt instead of to play from his mind. Unsolicited, a fleeting, mental soundclip of his mother singing to him bombards him and he shoves that down, too. He glides through an intersection without checking for cars and eventually reaches a state of somber numbness.

He doesn’t really remember getting to Harry’s house, just resurfaces to awareness as he kicks his board up and treks across Harry’s yard, shoes scraping over the bit of concrete patio to get to the back door. There are no cars in the drive, and it’s late enough that Niall just stoops to fetch the spare key from a nearby potted plant and lets himself in.

What he’s not expecting is to open the door to find Zayn in the kitchen. He immediately skitters backwards, away from the central lighting of the room. “Ack, Zayn,” he yelps, trying to duck into what little shadow there is.

Zayn twirls around from the counter with a look of alarm on his face, a spoon stuck in his mouth and a coffee mug in hand. The spoon falls and clatters to the floor when he sees Niall. “Oh,” Zayn breathes, and he starts to reach out, starts to cross the room, but Niall’s body shudders back of its own accord, shoulders pushing out to frame his chest defensively. Zayn freezes. He’s suspended, tilted toward Niall, eyes tracking over his face. He licks his lips like he’s going to start speaking, and Niall turns his eyes to the floor. 

But Zayn doesn’t speak, and after a few moments of thick, tense silence, Niall raises his head and meets Zayn’s petrified, searchlight stare. 

“You okay?” Zayn manages at length, whispering for some reason. Maybe Harry’s sleeping. 

Niall clears his throat quietly and nods his head. “M’gonna go shower,” he tells Zayn, hoping he sounds as reassuring and certain as he wants to, then leaves Zayn to the quiet of the kitchen.

Niall’s familiar with the layout of Harry’s house, and he pauses momentarily at the linens closet in the hallway for a towel before shutting himself inside the bathroom, the light blue walls and dim lights serving to finally make him feel relatively safe. He gets under the steaming water and just hangs his head, closes his eyes and wishes he could stay there forever. He had purposefully avoided the mirror, but he feels out the tear in his lip with his fingers, making sure to turn his face into the spray and scrub hard despite the pain. His stomach growls and he ignores it. 

He resolves to leave everything there in the shower, washed and drained away from him. Some times are more difficult than others, but he’s excelled at compartmentalizing all his life.

When he finally makes his way out to the couch in the den, his usual spot whenever he’s crashing at Harry’s, he finds it already occupied. Zayn’s there, splayed out with a massive book of landscape photography from the coffee table open across his chest and a drained mug of what looks like one of Harry’s mom’s fancy teas on the floor beside him—the little purple tag dangling down the side. He’s almost certainly asleep, and Niall moves to pick the book up and place it back on the table. He hesitates for a long moment, but he’s too exhausted to bother finding somewhere else to go (Harry notoriously spread eagles wherever he sleeps, so his bed is out, and he sure as hell isn’t sleeping on the floor) and he thinks he can keep his fantasies in check for one night, so he knees his way onto the sofa and prepares to make himself at home atop a Zayn-cushion. 

The movement rouses Zayn, so he can’t have been too far gone, and he blinks up at Niall startled, as if he _hadn’t_ expected to fall asleep here on this nice comfy couch after a soothing mug of tea. Niall’s face-to-face with him, held up straight on locked elbows above Zayn, and he smiles at how different Zayn always looks in his various stages of sleep as opposed to his waking self. Softer. Off his guard. 

“You’re in my spot,” Niall whispers. He makes an ‘oops’ face as his wet hair drips a fat drop on Zayn’s face, but he doesn’t even seem to react, still peering up at Niall with something like curiosity. Maybe he’s still asleep inside. Niall reaches to turn out the lamp next to the couch. 

“Niall…” Zayn trails, awake after all, sounding uncertain in the dark.

“I don’t care if you don’t care,” Niall chatters amicably, his cheer only slightly forced. “I’m good at sharing.” He doesn’t give Zayn a proper chance to respond, instead snuggles down onto him and nuzzles his face into Zayn’s shoulder, turning with a heavy exhale so that the tip of his nose tickles just under Zayn’s jawline. It’s not a spot that Niall’s foreign to; Zayn’s been his confidante and comforter in more than one situation, and Niall feels part of him shine with honor over the fact that Zayn’s come to him in times of exceeding distress before, too. When the booze gets flowing between a pile of ragamuffin boys, it never seems like too big of a deal to sidle on up for a cuddle. Louis, despite his acerbic front, is probably the best at offering cuddles without it seeming like anything to be ashamed of. Niall just tries to emulate that. He’s found that, for the most part, if you don’t make a big deal about it, neither will anyone else. Hopefully Zayn doesn’t think it’s a big deal now.

Zayn reaches to push Niall’s head back up, holding his chin in one hand while he thumbs gently over his swollen lip. “Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks quietly. 

“No,” Niall says, his voice weighted and tired even to his own ears.

Zayn pushes every kind of limit in life that he can, in good and bad ways—in his surfing, skating, how long he can go without asking for a favor, how few words he can say to a customer, how much he can smoke. Niall knows that about him as sure as he knows Zayn’s birthday. But he doesn’t push Niall, here, in Harry’s house. Instead, he pulls Niall down to him. Niall starts to settle against him when he feels Zayn’s lips brush his cheek; he goes still, breath locking in his throat, fingers tightening around the couch cushion. Zayn trails close-lipped kisses down his face, airy things that Niall will wonder later if he hallucinated, if he wanted it so bad that he fabricated it. Zayn parts his lips, just the tiniest bit, and presses them firmly against the corner of Niall’s lower lip—it stings but it’s warm, and Niall doesn’t pull away as Zayn lingers. He feels like someone’s started a fire under his feet, and his body is suddenly far too small to hold his giant, pounding heart.

Eventually Zayn breaks away, dropping against the pillow with a soft sigh. “Okay,” he murmurs, and it takes Niall a second to realize he’s responding to Niall’s decline to talk. The subtle inflection of his voice, deep and smooth, conveys so much understanding in two small syllables that Niall has to swallow against an abrupt, hot prickle in his throat and in his eyes.

He pushes his face down into Zayn’s thin t-shirt and the throw pillows and keeps quiet, pulling air into his lungs again. He doesn’t really know what’s happening, but if Zayn’s not freaking out, Niall’s not going to freak out either. Simple as that.

It doesn’t take long for a deep exhale to steal out of Zayn’s lungs, his ribs contracting beneath Niall’s gradually. His arms come up to wrap around Niall, one of Zayn’s hands drifting up and down the small of his back soothingly. It calms the speed of Niall’s pulse, and he works on consciously relaxing each part of himself, concentrating on the thudding of Zayn’s heartbeat. 

“Night, Ni,” Zayn says eventually, slurred, and Niall returns the sentiment. It takes him at least another thirty minutes before he, too, drifts off.

︾

“It’s just awful,” Perrie complains from where she’s lounging in Jesy’s lap on the Pepto-Bismol couch. “I can’t even serve people a glass of water in the restaurant anymore.” 

She’s talking about the drought, of course, which they’re currently all experiencing the effects of as they try to cool down from a skate session. Niall, Zayn, Louis, and Liam had been skating near Jesy and Perrie’s apartment when Liam had suddenly sat down on the curb and put his head between his legs. “I think I’m done today,” he’d croaked, and Zayn had suggested taking refuge at the girls’ place. 

Liam is now starfished out across the cool black and white tile of the kitchen with his eyes closed, unspeaking, a bag of ice that Perrie had scraped out of the icebox for him on his forehead. Louis is sprawled out next to him, intermittently poking Liam’s cheek to make sure he’s alive. 

Niall’s sat on the floor across from the couch, right next to a large drum fan that’s situated on the ground next to a stack of records Jesy’s brought home from the shop. The fan is set to its highest speed, drowning out Liam’s occasional grunted curses at Louis and blowing Niall’s hair back off his face. He stretches his legs out against the hardwood floor, and even the wood feels cool against his overheated skin. He’s probably sunburned to a crisp.

“Yeah,” Zayn’s sympathizing with Perrie, who doesn’t clock onto her serving shift at The Shack for another few hours. Niall closes his eyes against how shot Zayn’s voice sounds, gravelly with thirst, resisting the urge to press himself up against Zayn despite the heat. He's been trying and failing lately to block out the memory of how Zayn had felt under him on Harry's couch. A problem he’s sure any normal human would have, really. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much of an upside.” 

“Except I can officially begin drinking before five,” Jesy says, lifting a glass of Sangria she’s been sipping intermittently. Niall snorts and she shoots him a look. “What? They told us to conserve water.” 

It turns out Jesy’s drinking habits are not the only thing that benefit from the drought. 

A wild Louis goose chase the next day concludes with them stumbling into an empty backyard. An empty backyard featuring an even emptier pool. Louis flourishes his hands towards it proudly. “Get ready to rumble, boys.”

“Louis,” Zayn whispers in awe, his skateboard resting under one foot. “You’re a fuckin’ genius.” 

“This is a bad idea, guys,” Liam cautions, hands on his hips.

“Shut up, Liam,” Louis huffs on his nails and pretends to shine them on his shirt. “And why thank you, Zayn,” he says. “Glad _someone_ around here appreciates me.” 

And that’s really the day the whole game gets turned on its head.

︾

“Stop!” Niall cries from where he’s hanging almost entirely out the window of the Civic, shirtless and kind of sweaty, and Louis slams on the brakes, throwing all of them forward. Niall struggles to keep hold of the car. “Got one!” 

Louis throws the car into reverse, clinching a questionable parking spot in the alley, and before the car is even properly turned off, they’re bursting out of it like an unleashed barrel of monkeys, skateboards and buckets in tow. They sprint across the alley and scramble up and over the back fence of the for-sale house without breaking stride in a display of grace typically not found in a single one of them. Well, except Harry, who ends up teetering over the top of the fence and falling into a shrub with a great thud. Niall laughs even as he hangs back to help Harry up.

They find the targeted pool with only two, maybe three, feet of water left in it, mossy and brown and hot like swamp water, rancid and stagnant at the bottom of the cement bowl. Niall’s the first in, stripping off his socks and shoes in record time and shimmying over the lip and down, bucket in hand. It’s a race then, no winners determinable but the objective clear between them: empty the pool as fast as possible. 

It’s neither clean nor easy work, muscles straining and sweat pouring from them as they lug bucketfuls of reeking pool water up and over the lip underneath the merciless Santa Monica sunshine, the heat like a vice grip. Niall’s skin is already red and ruptured in patches of healing blisters from days previous. Harry’s stripped his shirt off and rolled it into a bandana around his head, and Zayn's pulled the brim of his cap as low as it will go to shade his face. Not a single one of them complains, though, because the end will justify the means.

The pool is emptied as much as it needs to be within fifteen minutes and Liam waves a bottle of Coppertone at them fruitlessly, but they’re too excited to pause, grabbing their boards from the grass and bombing into the bowl. 

The first trial is the same as usual: make it over the light first, and bragging rights are yours for the day. 

In some pools, they have to disassemble diving boards in order to rocket up the pool wall and make it over the light, but today is thankfully not going to put up that much of a challenge. Every pool is a little different, the secret to getting over the light always a matter of degrees in angles, of seconds in timing. Today, Zayn makes it over first, swooshing over on his fifth attempt and back down into the bowl of the pool seamlessly, using the momentum to climb the other side and push the front of his board off the lip of the pool. He completes his round after that, popping his board up and scrambling up and out to let Niall go next. 

Niall makes it over the light on his second run and quickly turns his attention to a new trick: trying to get so high up the pool wall that he can cope a wheel out to grind the lip. It’s something he’s been messing with for a day or two, and as soon as he can really nail it down he’ll show it off for real. He doesn’t quite make it high enough this run, his velocity not great enough to counteract gravity, but his determination only grows as he drops back into the bowl.

They skate the pool for several hours, Harry capturing the best of their triumphs and the worst of their wipeouts on film, whooping along with them from topside as they rumble around the bowl in turns. Zayn does the best, executing insane combinations, coming up with moves they’ve never seen before, the rest of them trying to parrot him even though he himself isn’t quite sure what he’s just done. It’s all new, it’s all exciting, the relatively unexplored frontier of skateboarding a beguiling expanse ahead of them. It feels like someone’s handed surfing to Niall all over again, but this time there is no Bertlemann to set the bar. Niall isn’t sure whether any of the rest of them are considering themselves the pioneers of vertical skateboarding yet, though he certainly has.

But nothing else is on their mind except escape when the police car pulls up; hearts rabbiting in their chests, they grab their shit and hop the back fence, dispersing in different directions as soon as their feet hit the ground (except for Harry, who Liam tugs along with him), leading the cop on a goose chase around the neighborhood until Louis can break away to get the car and careen at breakneck speed around corners, laughing maniacally, collecting them all from various stages of pursuit across lawns. 

Then it’s on to the next pool, and repeat, until they’re beaten down and dehydrated, fumbling through the doors of The Shack for sustenance. 

“You coming to mine tonight?” Harry asks Niall over one of the plastic tables, where they’re passing a large soda (free refills) back and forth. Niall can feel little beads of sweat trickling down from his hairline, as they’ve only just come in from skating.

“Yeah,” he nods, pausing to take a sip of Coke. “If that’s all right.”

“‘Course,” Harry murmurs as Niall passes him the cup. “You think you could get Zayn to come, too?” he asks even more quietly, eyes darting to where Louis is leaning across the counter at Zayn, most likely trying to sweet talk his way into free cheese fries. Zayn, freshly clocked into his shift after their sesh and somehow still impeccable looking, is feigning annoyance at his badgering—but in five minutes’ time, Niall bets Louis will have what he’s after.

Niall pulls a face, like, _yikes_. Past endeavours to wrangle Zayn anywhere for the night have usually ended in Zayn stubbornly declining; it’s like if it’s not his idea, he doesn’t want anything to do with it. “I can try, man. No promises.” He watches Harry slump forward in defeat, an accurate depiction of how Niall feels inside.

“I know,” Harry sighs. “I just. It’s just so frustrating. Like, I have a perfectly good house, and he’s one of my best friends—”

“You know how he thinks,” Niall mutters. “Sucks, but. I’ll ask him tonight, okay?”

And Niall does, as they’re all rolling down Bay Street in the dusk in a staggered pack, kick pushing only every once in awhile to coast unhurriedly. Niall had waited around the diner, reading old _SURFER_ ’s and doing crosswords until Zayn got off, then together they’d met up with Louis, Liam, and Harry outside Love and Yogurt, where they were giving out free samples of their new flavor. “Hey,” Niall calls, soft, to Zayn, drifting his knuckles out to brush over Zayn’s fleetingly. “Come to Harry’s with me tonight?”

Zayn looks over at him, expression cryptic, before turning to face ahead again. Niall’s been on the receiving end of that expression more and more these days, and it makes his insides tie knots as he reflexively thinks of the night on Harry’s couch.

"Nah, man,” Zayn says, tone neutral, almost blase. “I was just there a couple days ago.”

Niall kick-pushes half-heartedly for a few paces. “Yeah, but I wasn’t. We haven’t really stayed up and chilled together in a while.” 

Zayn chuckles, hollow to Niall’s ears. “Yeah. Soon, then, okay? Not tonight,” he repeats with a finality that tells Niall it’s time to shut it down.

“All right,” he forfeits, and they skate side by side in companionable silence before Zayn splits off at Bay Street, waving and calling his goodbyes, and Niall wants to follow him badly enough that he can feel it, aching and undeniable in his chest.

︾

The morning of the Del Mar Nationals brings the weather that Niall had been hoping for: searing sunlight without a cloud in the sky, but not too humid, and not hot enough to make him feel as if he might keel over of heat exhaustion. There’s a bit of a breeze coming in from the east, balmy and friendly, and it puts Niall in a chipper mood when it tickles the tops of his ears as he waits on Harry’s stoop for Simon to pick him up.

When the crew rumbles up, he slings himself up and over into the bed of Simon’s Datsun. Harry scrambles in after him in his usual drunken-daddy long legs fashion, grunting as he heaves the last of his lanky self in while trying to keep his camera bag steady. Caroline, Louis, and Zayn have already been collected, and though Zayn is snugged down into the corner of the truck bed and seemingly dozing beneath the tipped brim of his snapback, Louis and Caroline are wide awake; both of them watch Harry’s struggle with a mixture of exasperation and affection. Which is to say, the standard affair for regarding Harry doing anything. 

They pick Liam up last as his house is on the way southbound out of Venice, and he hops into the truck with a particularly sunny smile and a cooler. “Got water and sandwiches in here, guys,” he informs them as he seats himself, reaching over to bang the side of the truck twice to signal Simon he’s settled. 

“Aw, thanks, mom,” Louis coos, but it’s not malicious. Finally. It’s the same kind of derisive humor he treats Harry with, which Niall knows is a badge of honor in some ways. 

Liam rolls his eyes, but the corners of his mouth are trying not to smile. “Yeah, okay, we’ll see what you’re saying in a half hour, Tomlinson.” 

“Stop,” Caroline laughs, her eyes crinkling happily, as she pushes Louis’ shoulder lightly. “It’s nice of you, Liam. I forgot my water bottle right on my kitchen table, after telling myself not to forget it about fifty times.” 

“Not a problem,” Liam replies, opening the cooler and digging out bottles of water for each of them. Louis turns his nose up so Liam just sets it by his feet. Not fifteen minutes later and Louis relents, licking his lips and opening the bottle. He tries to be discreet but Niall can see Liam staring at him, smirking, and eventually Louis looks up and their gazes meet. Louis flips him the bird and Niall cackles, which makes Harry snicker. 

“Pipe down, peanut gallery,” Louis snips, but nobody listens, and Niall lets his laughter wind down gradually until he’s relaxed and content despite the somewhat cramped seating in the truck as they speed down the highway.

Zayn wakes up sometime around when they exit the 405; Niall sees him stir, sees his eyelashes fluttering in the shadow of his hat, so he stretches out his leg to tap the toe of Zayn’s shoe with his own. Zayn’s eyes fly open, meeting Niall’s curious observation with a slightly discombobulated look, but after mere seconds he calms into a gentle smile.

“When did _you_ get here?” he asks across the space, hard to hear over all the wind rushing past them, but Niall can read his lips well enough. 

“A while ago!” Niall calls. “We’re on the 73, bro!” 

“Ah, no shit?” Zayn asks, reaching up to rub his eyes, straightening up in the corner and twisting around to survey their surroundings. 

“You were out like a light,” Caroline says. “I dunno how you slept with all this noise!” 

Zayn shrugs one bony shoulder, the material of his spotless blue Zephyr shirt creasing as he does. “Dunno. Was really tired, I guess.”

Niall’s lips twitch—he doesn’t know where Zayn was last night; he’d been in the truck with Louis before Niall and Harry were picked up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he stayed at the co-op. He tries to catch Louis’ eye, but Louis has fixed his attention elsewhere.

“How ‘bout those sandwiches, Payne?” 

Liam raps his fingers against the lid of the cooler. “Already?” 

Niall watches closely as Louis’ eyes flash, darting like lightning to Zayn and back to Liam. “Didn’t know there was a schedule, here.”

Understanding dawns on Liam’s face, but thankfully he pulls it back before Zayn sits up fully and knocks his cap up, yawning. “There isn’t,” Liam replies evenly. “Just didn’t expect you to give up so soon.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I forfeit, whatever,” Louis grumbles, making grabby-hand gestures as Liam passes around sandwiches. They’re all the same, peanut butter and grape jelly. Niall feels a bubble of gratitude for Liam well up as he eats his, sneaking cautious glances at the way Zayn wolfs his down in three bites. Something other than the sandwich wrestles around in his gut but he gets distracted when Harry stiffens, noticeable to Niall as he’s pressed up all along his side. Niall turns his head but before he can ask what’s up, he sees Caroline licking a fallen glob of jelly up the side of her index finger. Jesus.

“We still have, like, an hour to go,” Harry rattles inanely, and Niall stuffs the last of his sandwich into his mouth to keep himself from making fun of him. 

“Let’s play a game,” Caroline says, easy like she doesn’t know that Harry’s probably trying not to pop a boner. 

“Great idea!” Liam says, clapping his hands together and looking around at them for consensus. Niall’s never been to summer camp, but sometimes he thinks about how if he did go, he would expect all the counselors to be clones of Liam.

“Never have I ever,” Caroline adds, and Liam’s smile loses about ten watts of solar power in an instant. 

Honestly, though, Niall doesn’t learn too much that’s new. He didn’t know that Caroline frequently hooked up with other women, but he did know about Louis’ arson stint, Harry pissing himself in public, and Zayn getting a hard on in class. He’s slightly surprised that Liam’s not a virgin, but also Liam’s a good looking guy, so Niall doesn’t doubt it. 

After two rounds the game falls by the wayside and the conversation slowly peels away, Niall’s throat a bit hoarse from yelling to be heard. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, though, and Niall catches Zayn drumming his fingers against his board in his lap along to the idle beat Niall had been tapping with his feet. They realize it at the same time, looking at each other and giggling for a small, insular moment. 

By the time they pull up to the competition Niall can feel his arms and shoulders starting to sting and tighten with sunburn, but it seems irrelevant as they all hop over the sides of the truck, Simon locking the cab and adjusting his aviators before setting off. They trail behind his confident swaggering like a cluster of crazed ducklings, hopping from foot-to-foot as they push one another and holler, creating a general ruckus. Simon blazes the way through the crowds of gathered competitors and their teams and families—heads snap in their direction and people mutter angrily, but Niall ignores the dozens of death glares he can feel boring into the back of his head. _Fuck ‘em_ , he thinks, _we’re the motherfucking Zephyr team_.

Niall’s not honestly sure how they get away with cutting the line like that—Simon’s powers of persuasion are surely a force to be reckoned with—because he’s too busy finger-sword fighting with Louis to pay much attention, just accepts the number and safety pin handed to him as they’re ushered from sign ups to sidelines. 

“What the fuck?” Louis says, baffled and drawn out, and they all echo that sentiment in their own ways as they come face-to-face with the competition space. 

Zayn’s come to a halt at Niall’s side. “What are we supposed to do with this?” he mutters quietly.

“Dunno,” Niall responds, just as quiet, leaning til his arm brushes Zayn’s, gravitating together as they contemplate the fact that what they’ve been given to work with is a smooth platform, completely and utterly flat. No slope, no rail, just a big empty square. Nothing like Bicknell, nothing like the school yards, nothing like the pools; nothing like the Z-Boys. 

They watch, disgruntled, as a few competitors take their turns—they’re all doing typical moves from the 60’s in their spotless gym shorts and sweatbands. Handstands, 180’s, docile tricks that the Zephyr team had never put much stock into, never invested much energy in something that felt outdated and tired to them.

Simon draws them into him. In an unprecedented move, he tips his sunglasses down his nose to gaze at them all seriously. His eyes are brown—not the kind of fossilized maple tree sap color that Niall sometimes thinks Zayn’s look like, but muddy, unrelenting brown. Niall's not sure why, but he wasn't expecting that, and it feels a bit surreal when Simon looks at him directly. "Screw these fucking yuppies," Simon says, deliberate. "This is an opportunity to show them something different. Tear it to shreds out there." With that, he claps them each on the back and pushes them off in the direction of the line up, leaving them all to mull over what the hell they're going to pull out there. 

“Up next, representing the Zephyr Team, Niall Horan!” the host announces to a polite round of clapping—people have no idea who they are. Niall can’t spare the attention to be annoyed with the fact that both his first and last names get mispronounced; there’s a build of static white noise in his ears as he locks his jaw and tries to breathe. His legs move automatically to the starting point, and he looks up to the sun. _So bright,_ he thinks, and then he lays down his board.

The only thing Niall can think to do is bert slide after bert slide, volleying up his momentum by skating across the perimeter of the floor, crouching low and then throwing his balance out, planting his hands to the ground and pivoting his board around himself in an arc, the rest of his body following belatedly until he can push himself back up to stand. He pushes across the floor again to drum up some speed for a series of kickflips before dropping low into another bert, this one faster, harsher, cutting harder. The rest of his time runs together, his decisions blurring as his system overrides to instincts in the face of his panic. The next thing he’s sharply aware of is the blare over the loudspeaker, signalling his time up.

He can’t tell how the crowd reacts because his team swamps him with noogies and congratulations, but there's not much time to dwell as Louis is called second. Louis executes a bunch of brutal bert slides, and also crouches down to his board, wrapping his fingers under the board and physically lifting it into bunny hops. Niall watches critically, gnawing the edge of his nail and wishing he'd thought to bunny hop; basic flatwork that he's forgotten about thanks to the craze of their vertical pool riding.

Zayn is called third and shoves that basic flatwork back into the audience's face—people before them had been doing easy 180's back and forth on their board to loud applause, but Zayn shoves it to them with a 360 spin, bert slide, then another 360—no 720, 1080, 1440! All with his hands pressed together as if in prayer, coolly composed at the front of his board. Niall glances at the judges, not trusting them to have kept up with how many rotations Zayn just did. Louis is screaming wildly beside him, jumping up and down, and Zayn finishes his run to louder applause than anyone else has received thus far.

Unfortunately, the judges seem at odds with the crowd, each of them only scoring Zayn a seven. Niall had pulled three sevens and a six-point-five; Zayn should have far surpassed him. 

"Bullshit!" Louis and Niall yell at the same time, and Niall can hear Liam's angry muttering behind him. The crowd around them boos, and Niall's grateful that at least Zayn's talent is plain to all of them as well. Simon storms over to the judges' table, looking so ferocious with his burly arms swinging and aviators flashing in comparison to their Hawaiian flower button ups and straw hats.

"Are you guys blind?" Simon demands. "My kid just shat on everyone else out there." 

"Sir, sit down or you will be removed from the premises," one of the judges instructs warily, standing up to try and assert his authority but falling flat by about a mile by clutching his clipboard to his chest. 

"I will not sit down—" Simon starts, and the man cuts him off.

"Scores are final, sir."

That's when a different judge pipes up from under a bright red visor. "Yes, and your previous skater, Louis Tomlinson, has been disqualified."

If Simon didn't know that the entire team was behind his back, he has to now, the group of them erupting into wild objections. 

"On what fucking grounds?" Simon asks, furious. 

"He was out of bounds," the man with the clipboard says, looking more and more unnerved.

"He was not!" comes Zayn's clear, incensed voice, and Niall looks over to him. He's never seen Zayn as angry as he is now, dramatic scowl framed by his thick eyebrows, cheeks flushed. Niall doesn't even hear the rest of the next sentence out of the man's mouth, only that it starts with, "Tell your Paki boy—" before Louis has broken free from the clutch of Caroline's fingers, closed the gap between himself and the judge in three strides, and punched the man in the jaw. 

“Ahh, fuck!” Louis hisses, twisting away and curling over, cradling his hand to his chest. Meanwhile, chaos has descended, the rest of the judges almost upending the table as they jump to their feet, onlooking parents from the competition converging upon them. Niall darts in and pulls Louis out, shoving him back into their group to be shielded from angry comments.

"Okay, calm down, calm down." Simon's gone from rage to trying to keep the peace, hands spread wide and backing up against them protectively. "C'mon now, everybody just take a breath."

The judge that Louis punched is upright again and a vivid shade of red. Niall has an ugly hunch that they’re all about to be disqualified, but he can’t even care for how mad he is. He’s glad Louis punched that fucker. “Someone had to do it,” Niall mutters in Louis’ ear, clinging to him tight. “Someone had to fuckin’ do it, Lou, what a fucking asshole.” 

Somehow, miraculously, in the end, only Louis is disqualified, though Zayn’s scores remain the same and the rest of the boys aren’t allowed to skate. Niall thinks it’s pretty much down to Simon’s flowery speech about how they’re just kids who don’t come from much, looking for a chance. It may be true, but Niall won’t play any beggar part, raking a merciless glare across the panel of judges, complete with the closest thing his face has ever pulled to a sneer. 

They stick around in a tight huddle as Caroline is permitted to compete in the girl’s heat and takes first place, combining her flatwork skills with what they’ve been practicing as best she can. Niall remembers watching her skate for the first time on Bicknell Hill, how she'd had more style than the rest of them. That still holds true, in his opinion, and he's happy to watch her accept her trophy and smile for the photographer with the other girls who placed. After that, though, there seems to be an unspoken consensus to try and leave as quickly as possible—a feat which proves difficult to pull off when, unexpectedly, other coaches and skaters swarm them. 

"You guys were sick, just insane!"

"Never seen that style before, man." 

"You ever practice around Del Mar?" 

And other questions of all varieties—someone asks Caroline what shampoo she uses, and another asks where they got their shirts printed. It’s a barrage that Niall was obviously not prepared for, especially given their reception with the judges. It gets a little overwhelming, Niall’s head starting to hurt, and around the same time that he can feel himself about to snap and sprint in the dead opposite direction, Zayn finds him. He snags his arm, warm fingers wrapping around the vulnerable inside of Niall's elbow. It's one of the only places on Niall's body free from sunburn, bruise, or scratch, and the press of Zayn's fingers against such tender skin freezes him, shuts out the rest of the world in an instant. 

"We're gonna go," Zayn's saying in his ear, sounding relieved yet urgent at the same time. He probably likes the attention even less than Niall. "Simon wants us to make our way out." Niall nods and expects Zayn to let go then, to maybe go tell the others, but he doesn't. He holds fast onto Niall and starts to lead him out of the park, weaving through the crowds; Niall realizes one of the heads bobbing a ways ahead of them is Liam's, and he can hear Simon talking not too far behind. He licks his lips and lets Zayn get them all the way out to the truck, where they both slump against the side, taking a moment to recompose themselves.

Simon's the last to the truck with a fervent, "Let's get the fuck out of dodge." Niall feels some tension leak out of him as they exit the parking lot and get speeding down the road.

“Sorry you lost your spot, Lou,” Zayn says in the truck, head on his knees, looking exhausted. “And sorry you didn’t even get a chance, Liam.”

“Don’t care,” Louis says firmly, and Liam shakes his head in solidarity. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about it, okay? Don’t even worry. It had to be fucking done.” Louis reaches out to squeeze his hand. “Don’t even worry,” he repeats.

“There will be other competitions,” Liam adds, good natured as ever, and Zayn gives him a weak smile.

Simon pulls into a greasy spoon and yanks the truck bed open to give a rousing speech, hands on his hips. “I don’t care about anything else that happened today, you guys kicked ass. You kicked those yuppies’ asses, and I couldn't be happier. Congratulations to Caroline on first fucking place!” he cheers, making Caroline light up, blushing and bowing her head in thanks as the guys applaud her. “And congrats to Zayn and Niall for placing top ten, but you guys all placed in my heart, cheesy as that sounds." It is cheesy, but it does cheer Niall up a bit. By the way Zayn’s shoulders loosen, he thinks it cheers Zayn up a little, too. “Now get in there,” he points at the restaurant, “‘cause I’m buyin’ dinner!” The mood lifts as they scamper down and into the cool air, cheered by the prospect of free food and soft serve ice cream. 

Simon buys them all buffet passes only to have them thrown out halfway through because they’ve started a food fight. The manager, flushed a disconcerting plum color, comes over to tell them that, “This is a family restaurant, sir!” and someone’s response to that is to throw a glob of potato salad at his face. Niall’s not sure he’s ever laughed harder in his life, barely able to walk out the door with the stitches of it in his sides, wiping stray tears from his eyes afterwards as he calms down, cheeks smarting. 

Zayn squishes himself next to Niall for the return journey, and Niall presses their knees together lightly. They don't speak much, sated by the food and tired from the day, but after awhile Zayn turns towards him. "By the way," he says, quietly enough that Niall can infer he's not trying to talk to everybody. "I took your advice, finally."

Niall frowns. "What advice?"

"About my sisters," Zayn says, licking his lips. "I actually, ah. I visited. Home."

"Zayn," Niall whispers excitedly, "Did you really?"

"Yeah," Zayn says, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "Just a visit. We made samosas together and just, like. Caught up. Mom didn't even cry, which was nice." 

"And?" Niall prods, wheedling just a tiny bit.

" _And_ ," he says, "I spent the night on the couch, I was so tired after eating Mom's cooking," he laughs. "I told 'em I've got a job now, gonna start looking for my own place. But it was good. So good to see them." Zayn pauses, swallowing and pulling his knees up to his chest. "And I prayed with Dad in the morning. So..." he breathes. "So you were right, and I just. Wanted to let you know."

Niall doesn't care if the truck bed is small, or if everyone else is looking at them. He stretches his arm and gathers Zayn closer to him. "Hey," he murmurs happily. "Proud of you, man." 

"Yeah, yeah," Zayn says, and then proceeds to fall asleep on Niall's chest.

︾

They rock back into Venice later that evening, after the sun has set; Simon trundles the wheezing Datsun into a gas station to fill up before heading back to the shop, where he cedes control of the record player to Zayn and agrees to bring out nearly the entirety of his alcohol supply to the patio to celebrate.

He cracks a can and raises it up. “You guys are crazy, but you worked crazy hard for this,” he commends, smiling. “Congrats. Now get shitty." He clinks his can around against others’ as Louis cheers and shotguns his, beer spraying everywhere as he presses his mouth against the punctured side of the can messily. Everyone around him shrinks away from the spray, Simon cursing him loudly, and Niall finds himself laughing so hard his own gulp of beer fizzes a painful threat up his nose a bit. 

The next hour is a commotion, pure, chaotic shenanigans. Louis hijacks the record player and puts on Black Sabbath's _Iron Man_ , which induces such violent head banging that Harry nails his forehead against his own knee. A can of spray paint has been scavenged from inside and they’re taking turns tagging everything: the side of the shop, the fence, the cracking patio concrete. Caroline and Zayn fill a gallon cooler up with water from the hose then proceed to dump it over Simon’s head, shrieking as he spins around, spluttering. Niall watches Zayn dart away, laughter of reckless abandon on his lips, and suddenly feels much warmer. He doesn’t think it’s his beer.

Time warps and Niall’s not certain how much of it has actually passed when Zayn swoops into his line of sight and grabs his hand. "Hey," he greets, lips shiny in a loose grin. "Wanna get out of here?"

Niall giggles. “Sure, what we gonna do?”

Zayn mimes smoking. “Got some good stuff rolled, just don’t feel like sharin’ with everyone.” 

For no reason that he can explain, Niall reaches out and taps Zayn’s nipples, one right after the other, then shrugs and taps his belly button for good measure, too. Or, at least, taps an approximation of where Zayn’s belly button should be. “I’m glad I’m on your good side,” Niall says.

Zayn had hunched in instinctively at Niall’s harmless touches and he unfurls now, snickering. “Why, ‘cause I share my weed with you?”

Niall finishes his beer and licks his lips to collect the stray drops. “Something like that,” he answers vaguely. “C’mon then, bro, the world’s our oyster.” They don’t even say goodbye to anyone before leaving, Niall just clings to Zayn’s upper arm and follows him as they sneak around the side of the shop, through the gate and away.

Niall’s a little tipsy, and all he can do when the balmy ocean breeze hits his face is laugh into it, scrunching his nose up and gravitating towards Zayn, their arms brushing as he wobbles. 

“What’s funny?” Zayn asks, laughing probably just because Niall is. 

“Nothing,” Niall giggles. “I dunno! It’s just crazy, man.”

“What’s crazy, man?” Zayn smiles at him. He’s got such a lovely smile.

“We’re fucking smashing it!” Niall exclaims, throwing his arms out wide and choke-laughing out an apology when he hits Zayn square across the chest. “I just mean, like,” he continues after, “a year ago, I never would of thought I’d be here. On the Zephyr team, with my best friends, and maybe we didn’t place like Caroline did, but we should have. And everybody knows that.” He bounces ahead to turn and walk backwards, beaming at Zayn, who’s grinning back amused, his eyes squinting. “You think we’re gonna go places, Zayn? For real?”

Zayn reaches out, steals Niall snapback and twists it down onto his own head. It suits him so well Niall doesn’t even object. “Yeah, Nialler,” he grins. “I think maybe we’ll go places. For real.” Giddiness bursts through Niall’s chest unbridled and he wishes that he could do something else with all the kinetic energy singing in his veins. Something like kiss Zayn, share the happiness, feel Zayn being happy, too. Instead he just holds his hand up for a high-five that stings with the force of it.

They make their way to P.O.P. and hop onto the pier. In his state, Niall pays extra attention walking down the rickety boardwalk, Zayn pressing one cautious hand to the small of his back. They navigate to the end of the boardwalk and plop down together, legs dangling off the pier, heels swinging through the air. Zayn retrieves the spliffs from the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and hands one off to Niall, who tucks it firmly between his lips and leans in, letting Zayn light it for him. He’s so entranced by the soft glow of the lighter against Zayn’s face—sharpening his cheekbones and casting a warm shadow under his lower lip—that he almost forgets to inhale. He ends up coughing roughly from inhaling too fast, eyes watering, and Zayn rubs his back generously.

They smoke in silence for minute before Niall finds himself tilting backwards, spliff held carefully aloft as he goes down, a puff of air getting forced out of his lungs as his back hits the wood. 

“How’s that view?” Zayn asks. 

“Stellar,” Niall answers, prompting Zayn to recline back next to him a moment later. Niall tries to count the stars above them, but his count smudges out of focus fuzzily some time after six. 

“Wish I knew anything about astrology,” Zayn murmurs, taking a drag as punctuation to the thought. 

“That’s okay,” Niall hums. “You know enough already.”

“What do you mean?” Zayn laughs quietly, rolling to face Niall. 

Months of realized feelings bubble up in his throat from his stomach, sudden and undeniable. Niall waves his hand, the smoke of his spliff leaving a fleeting pattern. “You just. Do. You know about everything. You’re good at everything. You’re smart, you’re good at anything you fuckin’ decide to be good at.” The feelings are moving hot and fast, molten rock rushing under his breastbone, and Niall’s a little high on more than just the spliff. “Zayn, you just—” his voice cracks with sudden nerves, but finds himself unable to continue because Zayn’s pressed a soft palm over his mouth.

He realizes Zayn’s sat up, bending over to look at Niall. “Ni,” he implores, sounding so confused. “What’s going on?” 

Niall starts to mumble a reply and Zayn moves his hand away. “M’just telling the truth. You’re the best of us,” he whispers, and he realizes how serious he sounds, so he smiles. The stars framing Zayn’s head look entirely appropriate. “I’m just saying. You don’t need to wish to be anything else.” He stops himself before he can embarrass himself further, say something like _because you’re already perfect._

Zayn taps his fingers against Niall’s sternum. “Okay…” he hovers. “Do you have something on your mind, man?” he looks genuinely worried, eyebrows knotted.

“If we do take off,” Niall starts, licking his lips, tasting the ocean salt on them. “The team. If we do go places. I just wanna stay with you, Zayn. I think it’s hard for me to think about the future because, um. Most the time I can’t picture how we would stay friends—”

“Niall, what on Earth?”

“Just,” Niall shuts his eyes. “Because you’re so good, get it? Like. You could be a teacher or an artist or a fuckin’ genius or something. You’ll get a way out, like I know you’ve always wanted. But me?” Niall squirms against the boardwalk, the rough wood scratching his skin. “I don’t have so many options. And maybe this is giving us a chance to. To. I dunno. Share a, a way out.” He shuts his mouth and drifts in the stunned quiet that encompasses them after that. He doesn’t know where all of it came from; he hadn’t even articulated that much to his own self, much less thought about saying it aloud. He can’t tell whether he regrets it yet or not, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes to find out.

“Well,” Zayn says at length, hushed. “I’ll tell you one thing, I think you’re selling yourself pretty short.” Niall snorts and Zayn makes an offended noise, a sharp huff of breath like he’s frustrated. “Seriously, Niall. You can pick up anything, I’ve seen you do it. And your determination, man. So many times I woulda quit trying for the team if it weren’t for you.”

“This isn’t what I was trying to do,” Niall says, blushing. “I don’t need a—”

Zayn cuts him off, “But,” he presses, firm, and Niall opens his eyes. Zayn’s looking right down at him, piercing. “If it were up to me, I’d take you anywhere.” Niall doesn’t know how they got here, to this place where Niall’s talking more candidly than he has in months, and his skin feels unbearably hot, and he can feel himself trembling under the weight of Zayn’s discerning eyes. Maybe it was dominating the Del Mar Nationals. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the pot. “And here’s another thing,” Zayn whispers. “Can I try something?”

Niall doesn’t know what got them here, but he’s running purely on his instincts now, his heart beating fast as a hummingbird’s wings. He nods, not trusting himself to run his mouth anymore. Zayn flicks away the stub of his spliff and plucks away Niall’s as well, leaving him to close his fingers around air. He feels awfully sober.

Zayn gets closer and closer, his face blurring out of focus, and Niall feels him bestow a series of kisses down the side of his face, tender and light, like the night Niall crawled on top of him at Harry’s house. Niall’s almost positive that all of his bones have been infused with antifreeze or something, because he half feels like he’s going to freeze over and half like he’s going to start on fire. His whole body is one giant goosebump. By the time Zayn trails down to his lips, he’s ready for it, and he welcomes the achingly gentle brush of lips with a bitten-off groan, pressing into Zayn’s kiss willingly. Zayn shuffles, re-arranging his limbs over Niall’s so that he can bracket Niall’s head with his elbows, forearms resting against the boardwalk and hands in Niall’s hair. The second kiss is easier, looser, Niall nudging at Zayn’s lips, bringing his hands up to cup Zayn’s jaw until Zayn opens his mouth. Niall allows himself one flickering run over the inside swell of Zayn’s bottom lip before he pulls back. “Zayn,” he says, marginally proud that he’s not flat-out panting. 

“Niall?” Zayn asks, and Niall’s glad he also sounds a little breathless. 

“What, what’s, what’re we doing?” Niall stutters. 

Zayn’s thumb rubs a firm little circle near Niall’s temple. “I like you,” Zayn says. “I mean, I love you as a friend, and I, well, like you like _this_. So. If you’re, like, cool. I mean if you also... like me. I mean, I thought maybe you might, but...” 

“You like me like this?” Niall echoes faintly, stuck on that. 

“Yeah,” Zayn says, small, ducking his head shyly. “Have. For, like, a really long time, I think. I dunno, maybe I just—just, love you full stop. I dunno, it’s—”

“It’s okay,” Niall finishes for him, reaching up to catch one of Zayn’s hands out of his hair and interlace their fingers. “Me too. All of it.”

“Yeah?” Zayn breathes, peeking back to meet Niall’s searching eyes.

“Yeah, yes, hell fucking yes,” Niall says. “I can’t tell when it started, but I know.” 

“So we can just figure it out, right? You’ll figure it out with me?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Niall says. “Now, please,” he begs, tugging at the wide collar of Zayn’s t-shirt and drawing him down. 

The third kiss is hot and eager, Niall at once pliant and explorative beneath Zayn’s attention. Zayn tastes a little of Corona and a little of his pot—which smells like Evergreen trees, like real good stuff—with the faintest sharp edge of tobacco. But after awhile, he mostly just tastes like spit and heat and _Zayn_ , and at some point Niall’s hands press Zayn’s full weight down to him, reveling in the sensation of being so grounded, yet as if he could float away at the same time. 

Niall’s not been with many people, but he thinks if it were anyone else this would be about the time that flies would be undone and some things taken care of. As it stands, he’s preoccupied tracing every contour of Zayn’s arms, collarbones, fingertips tripping up the column of his throat, feeling out every feature of his face. It makes Zayn giggle, and they break the kiss, pulling in air gracelessly. Niall watches his own fingers smooth over Zayn’s eyebrow, then he crooks them and whisper-shouts, “Do a 360!” as he skateboards his fingers down the slope of Zayn’s nose and off. 

Zayn smiles and leans down to skim his lips back and forth over Niall’s swollen ones, a butterfly brush just as intoxicating and heady as the lushness of his open mouth and loose tongue had been. 

All sense of time is lost, and their frantic energy decelerates gradually until Niall goes from burning up to being so relaxed he isn’t inclined to move a single muscle ever again, content with the way Zayn’s burrowed down into his chest, lipping lazily at the side of his neck. Niall wraps his arms around him, thrilling at each small privilege that feels like a whole new experience on this side of a declaration of feelings.

It is getting chilly out, though. As if on cue, Zayn sighs in his ear. “We should go.” 

Niall’s grip tightens. It can’t be Cinderella hour already, the time of night when Zayn inevitably departs from his company, whisked off to whatever sanctuary til morning. Niall will probably go to Harry’s, but he doesn’t know if Zayn will come with him. “Where to?” he asks anxiously. 

“Anywhere,” Zayn says as he stands, reaching down to help Niall up and reeling him in with steady hands at his hips. He leans in, lips brushing Niall’s cheek. “Told you I’d take you anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to the book Zayn references, which wasn't published yet but is one of my favorites, _Born Confused_ by Tanuja Desai Hidler.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://coffeeandniall.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
